


lovesick

by nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: M/M, not a particularly happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-04 11:20:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 57,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12167850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare/pseuds/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare
Summary: At random and always at the age of eighteen, a small percentage of the population develop a rare disease called amoritis. Its physical symptoms are a sudden change in appearance to red eyes, white hair, and a raised pink scar, but its main symptom is the most notorious - anyone who falls in love with an amoritis host will die.Shion develops amoritis when he turns eighteen, and Nezumi tries to survive.





	1. Chapter 1

_present_

Nezumi slipped his hands in his pockets. A woman walked out the bakery, and the wind tossed her hair in front of her eyes.

            Nezumi watched her fumble her fingers through her bangs before looking behind her again, at the bakery. He doubted Shion lived there anymore, upstairs where the smell of Karan’s baked goods would sneak through the crack beneath the guest room door before daybreak, before Shion woke, before Nezumi woke beside him.

            Doubtful Shion still lived there, with his mother. He’d always wanted to go to university, chattered about the schools in Tokyo and shared application essay prompts with Nezumi as if it had been fascinating conversation, and it hadn’t been, of course, but Nezumi had listened anyway, been fascinated anyway.

            Maybe Shion had gone to Tokyo and never left. Maybe he was there now, had met a nice girl in one of his classes who liked to talk about the same bland things Shion liked to talk about, who liked to listen to Shion talk about these bland things, but so had Nezumi, and even when he told Shion to shut up, Shion had never seemed to mind.

            Nezumi watched three children spill out the bakery door, then a man walk out more slowly behind them. Of course, Shion would not have let himself meet a girl in one of his classes. He was smarter than that. Kinder than that. Better than that. And no girl would be foolish enough to want to be met by him.

            Nezumi thought about turning back. Doubtful Shion was in the bakery at all. And if he was, doubtful he’d want to see Nezumi. And if he did, doubtful anything had changed in four years since Nezumi saw him last.

            Nezumi exhaled hard. Already, he thought he felt nauseous, but he told himself it was all in his head.

            It had been four years, and to love a boy – a man, Nezumi reminded himself, Shion was a man now – to love a man after not seeing him for so long was a silly thing to do, not something Nezumi thought himself capable of, surely he wasn’t still, surely that had passed.

            Doubtful Shion was even here, and if he was, doubtful Nezumi would be in danger.

            If not doubtful, then highly unlikely, and after four years, Nezumi had to take the chance.

 

_seven years ago_

“It’s my birthday,” Shion said, which Nezumi knew.

            “I know.” They were eating Shion’s birthday cake. Nezumi licked his fork clean and peered at Shion’s plate, which still had half a slice of cake while Nezumi’s own plate was empty.

            “I told you not to get me something,” Shion said.

            Nezumi nodded. “I didn’t.”

            He reached over and swiped some of Shion’s cake, but the chunk perched on his fork fell off between Shion’s plate and Nezumi’s own, onto Shion’s carpet where he and Shion sat against the side of his bed.

             “Dammit.”

            They’d had their first slices with Karan and Safu in the kitchen and taken their seconds to Shion’s room after Safu went home and Karan went to bed.

            “Nezumi.”

            “I’m getting it, I’m getting it,” Nezumi muttered, scooping the fallen chunk of cake with his hands. He ate it, not being one to waste any of Karan’s baking, then stood up, grabbed a tissue from the box on Shion’s nightstand, and crouched back down to rub at Shion’s carpet where icing lingered.

            “I still want something,” Shion said, while Nezumi inspected the rug.

            “That looks clean to me,” Nezumi said, pointing at it. “What do you think? You don’t want to attract ants.”

            “Are you listening?”

            “What?”

            “I want something for my birthday from you,” Shion said.

            Nezumi rocked from his crouch onto his knees and inspected the birthday boy. Shion was fifteen and looked stringier than the day before. Nezumi had hit puberty before him, surpassing Shion in height and growing still, but he was starting to worry Shion would catch up to him if he didn’t stop stretching soon.

            “Too late. I didn’t get you anything because you told me not to.”

            “It’s not something you’d have to buy,” Shion said, tilting his head, inspecting Nezumi as if he was the one who was the mystery.

            Nezumi sighed. “Okay, Your Majesty. Don’t make me play guessing games, you know I find them tedious. What do you want?”

            Shion didn’t hesitate. “I want you to kiss me.”

            Nezumi had been licking icing off his palm and stopped in order to drop his hand and properly stare at Shion. “Should I give you a minute to think about what you said and if you really wanted to have said it and allow you the opportunity to take it back?”

            “I don’t want to take it back. I think you should be my first kiss, and I should be yours. It makes sense. We both trust each other, and we’re both honest with each other, so you can tell me if I’m using too much tongue, and I’ll tell you if you’re being too handsy, and we won’t feel embarrassed about it.”

            “Since when were tongues involved?” Nezumi asked, rubbing his palm on the knee of his sweats and trying to decide if Shion was being serious or not.

            “We’re mature, so I don’t think it will affect our friendship. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I want my first kiss to be a nice memory.”

            “Who says I’ll make it nice?” Nezumi countered, and Shion smiled.

            “That’s true, I shouldn’t make assumptions. You could be a terrible kisser.”

            “Are you being serious?”

            “That you might be a terrible kisser?”

            “That you want me to kiss you,” Nezumi said, crossing his arms, and Shion looked at him that way he did, his eyes flicking all over Nezumi’s face.

            “Yes.”

            This was the thing about Shion. His jokes were terrible and when he was serious there was no debate. He was serious to the point where Nezumi almost believed the sense in the nonsense Shion spewed – it had to be true, for Shion to believe it so absolutely. It had to be a good idea, if Shion was so certain of it, without any doubts at all.

            “Don’t you want your first kiss to be romantic? Aren’t you the romantic type?” Nezumi asked, squinting at Shion, this strange boy he’d known long enough that he should have stopped being so strange, but he hadn’t.

            Nezumi wasn’t used to him. Doubted he ever would be.

            Shion shrugged. “I don’t think so. I like the idea of romance, but it’s not really what I want right now.”

            “And what you want right now is for me to kiss you,” Nezumi clarified.

            “It’s silly that friends shouldn’t be allowed to kiss each other. While of course there are neural connections between physical intimacy stimulation and emotional feedback, a kiss is hardly – ”

            Nezumi lifted his hand. “I’m going to stop you there before you start rambling. I’m not worried you’ll fall in love with me.”

            Shion leaned forward, smiling lightly. He was sitting cross-legged, and his plate of cake was between them. “Then what are you worried about?” he asked.

            “I’m not worried at all.”

            “Will you kiss me, then?”

            Nezumi examined him. “That’s what you want for your birthday, Your Majesty?”

            Shion nodded. “That’s what I want for my birthday.”

            “And you promise you won’t fall in love with me?” Nezumi asked, and Shion laughed.

            “I won’t if you don’t.”

            “Promise,” Nezumi said.

            Shion nodded. “Promise.” He slid the plate from between them to the side, and Nezumi leaned forward.

            He kissed Shion, his first kiss, Shion’s first kiss, and Shion was fifteen exactly, and Nezumi was fifteen too because they’d decided to share a birthday since Nezumi didn’t know the date of his.

            A lie. They hadn’t decided. Shion had decided, and Nezumi hadn’t argued because Shion said it made sense, and Nezumi couldn’t find a way to argue with him.

            That was the thing about Shion. When he made up his mind, there was no arguing. When he insisted something was right, it became difficult to see it as wrong.

            Their first kiss was close-lipped, and then Shion opened his lips, so Nezumi did too. Shion used too much tongue at first – his own prediction, and Nezumi cupped his hand on Shion’s chin and pulled him away to tell him so.

            “Too much tongue,” he said, looking in Shion’s eyes, dark brown and very close to his own.

            They were serious, like he was in a lesson at school. “Okay.”

            Nezumi contemplated him. “Anything I should adjust?”

            “Nothing,” Shion said, and then he kissed Nezumi again, and he didn’t stuff his tongue all the way into Nezumi’s mouth, and his lips were very warm and his breath was warmer, and then he was gone again, this time without Nezumi pulling him.

            “What?” Nezumi asked.

            “Can I put my hands in your hair?”

            “Don’t pull hard,” Nezumi warned, and Shion nodded.

            “Put your hands in my hair too,” he said, and he kissed Nezumi again, and Nezumi touched Shion’s hair, and it was absurdly soft, and he lost his breath in Shion’s mouth, and then Shion was leaning closer, and Nezumi was leaning back, and Shion was leaning closer, and Nezumi was leaning back, and Shion was leaning closer, and Nezumi was on his back, and Shion was over him, still kissing him until he wasn’t.

            Nezumi was breathing harder. He looked up at Shion and the ceiling above Shion’s head. He looked at Shion’s parted lips. Exhales fell hard out of them onto Nezumi’s face.

            “Now we’ve both had a good first kiss,” Shion said. He was straddling Nezumi’s waist. He was light and heavy at the same time. Nezumi liked the weight of him and found it confusing. It anchored him. It made it impossible to escape.

            “Yeah,” Nezumi agreed. He tried to catch his breath. “I guess so.”

            Shion unstraddled Nezumi. Was sitting next to him, then lying next to him, and Nezumi turned his head, looked at Shion where he lay on his back beside him.

            Shion was looking up at the ceiling. He brought his hand to his face and touched his lips with the tips of his fingers.

            Nezumi breathed out his own lips. Felt the warmth of Shion’s mouth still on his.

            “Your Majesty,” he said, and Shion turned his head to look at him, the tip of his forefinger still touching his top lip.

            Nezumi said nothing. What a stupid thing to wish for, a kiss on his birthday, Nezumi thought, but he didn’t say it, couldn’t get his lips – still warm, still warm – to shape the words.

            Shion kept looking at him, then dropped his fingers from his lips and smiled the smile he always smiled, the smile that meant nothing had changed. “Happy birthday, Nezumi,” he said.

            Nezumi knew it wasn’t his birthday. He didn’t know when his birthday was, but he knew it wasn’t this day.

            Even so, when Shion said it, Nezumi had to believe him.

 

_fourteen years ago_

Nezumi stopped crying when the rich boy climbed onto his bed.

            “You don’t have to stop,” the boy said, slipping beneath the blanket he’d pulled out from the top of the closet and offered to Nezumi along with the shower and the clothes and the toothbrush and the bed in the guest room.

            He had a room for guests, like he expected them, like he expected Nezumi to come into the bakery from the storm, and maybe he had. Maybe that was why he hadn’t seemed surprised at all, maybe that was why he hadn’t hesitated for even a second to insist Nezumi stay.

            _Just one night._

            Nezumi wiped at his face. “Stop what?” he demanded. His voice was hoarse and a whisper when Nezumi hadn’t meant it to be.

            “You don’t have to stop crying. It’s okay to cry. There are hormones in our tears, so to release them can help you feel better.”

            “Hormones?” Nezumi asked, not thinking his tears had any hormones in them and this kid was crazy – but he’d known that already, and now the crazy kid was in his bed.

            Not his bed. The guest room bed. The bed for guests.

            The boy’s mother had been nice too, but mothers were supposed to be nice.

            “Is it okay if I stay here with you? I thought you might not want to be alone,” the boy said.

            His name was Shion. He’d told this to Nezumi twice – while Nezumi stood soaking wet and bleeding in the entrance of the bakery, and later, after Nezumi had been bandaged by the boy’s mother and showered in the boy’s fancy bathroom and pulled on the boy’s clothes.

            _Like the flower._

            Nezumi hadn’t told the flower boy his own name.

            The boy in Nezumi’s bed didn’t change the fact that Nezumi was alone, but Nezumi didn’t tell him this. Instead, he said –

            “My name is Nezumi.”

            The boy – Shion – smiled. He smelled like the shampoo Nezumi had poured into the palm of his hand in Shion’s fancy shower. It was clear and smooth and Nezumi had liked how it felt, rubbed it not only in his hair but on his skin just to feel it.

            “Hi, Nezumi,” Shion said, and Nezumi looked at him another second, then closed his eyes. His eyelashes were wet and cool against his own skin.

            Usually, Nezumi was scared to fall back asleep after the nightmares for fear of more, but that night, he forgot to be afraid.

 

_five years ago_

Nezumi was still thinking about Shion’s fifteenth birthday kiss over two years after it happened. It had never happened again, and seemingly, nothing had changed at all – nothing but the fact that Nezumi had something to think about.

            Nezumi didn’t think about it all the time. At nights mostly. Sometimes in the shower. Other times, like now, when Shion sat beside him with two bowls of ice cream and leaned against his side completely, thighs touching Nezumi’s, arm against Nezumi’s, shoulder against Nezumi’s.

            He was all warmth, and then there was the cool of the ice cream bowl Shion touched to Nezumi’s knee. “No sprinkles,” Shion said, when Nezumi took it, cupping his hand beneath it to feel the chill.

            “Sprinkles are just clumps of sugar with food coloring, you realize that, right?”

            Nezumi glanced at Shion’s bowl, which was, predictably, heaping with sprinkles.

            “Of course I realize that. That’s why they taste so good.”

            Shion’s phone blipped, and he leaned against Nezumi, nearly into Nezumi’s lap. Nezumi turned his head to look at the crown of Shion’s head, then around it, saw that Shion was practically lying on top of him in order to free his phone from underneath his thigh.

            Shion straightened up again. Nezumi released his breath and scraped his ice cream with the edge of his spoon.

            “Safu texted to change the channel to the news.”

            Nezumi looked around for the remote, found it on the edge of the couch, reached over for it, and clicked away from the Discovery channel to the news.

            _“The last of the victims afflicted with amoritis has passed away this afternoon in her cottage in north Italy. Silvia Ricci enjoyed a long life and, according to her sister, was never loved and never the cause of any casualties. With the passing of the last documented victim of amoritis, questions arise in regard to the uncertainty of whether or not the disease has died as well. We speak to amoritis experts after the break on the mysterious science of amoritis, most specifically to discuss the question on everyone’s mind – Is the human race free from it, or is this rare disease an unescapable human condition with an inevitable return looming in someone’s future?”_

            “I can’t believe she died,” Shion said, leaning forward, no longer fully against Nezumi’s side.

            Nezumi poked his ice cream. “Everyone dies.”

            “But she’s the last one.”

            “Probably not.”

            Shion glanced back at Nezumi, his eyes wide. “Do you think it’ll affect someone else?”

            Nezumi shrugged. “Why shouldn’t it? Amoritis isn’t smallpox, Shion, we haven’t found a preventative treatment, and there certainly isn’t a cure. The people who had it have just died, it’s not like anything has really changed. A new batch of afflicted victims is sure to crop up. It might even be you, your birthday is coming up. The big eighteen.”

            Shion frowned. “Don’t say that.”

            “Could happen.”         

            “What about you? You might get it,” Shion countered, and Nezumi smiled.

            “I’d look better than you would with white hair,” Nezumi said.

            “You’d look ridiculous.”

            “You’d look worse,” Nezumi replied.

            “This isn’t a joke,” Shion said, but he was laughing.

            When Shion laughed, he had crinkles around his eyes. Everyone did, Nezumi supposed, but he only ever noticed Shion’s.

            “Let’s make a deal. Neither of us gets amoritis,” Shion said, like it was a deal they could make, like it was not a random disease at all – no causes or probable risk factors research could detect, no genetic trail, no contagious patterns, no warning at all.

            “Promise,” Nezumi said, as if he could promise not to be hit by a disease that hit unexpectedly on the eighteenth birthday of anyone unlucky enough to get it, though the last diagnosis hadn’t been for forty-three years.

            “Promise,” Shion agreed, like he could agree such a thing, like now they were immune to the sudden change in appearance that came with the disease – bright white hair, vivid red eyes, and a pink raised scar of a shape that varied with each case.

            On the television, the news returned, and photographs of the last few cases of amoritis were shown on the screen, all with the telltale physical signs – impossible to miss, and that was the point.

            There was dye for the hair and colored contacts for the eyes and maybe even make-up for the scars, but the point wasn’t to cover them up. The point was to show them, to let people know, to warn the rest of the world that at eighteen, a victim of amoritis became dangerous.

            A weapon. A risk. A killer.

            _“While there has not been a diagnosis of amoritis worldwide for forty-three years, eighteenth birthdays are inevitably filled with trepidation. Has the death of the last victim of this disease marked a change in this fearsome ritual? Can we hope for a final relief from amoritis, or is it still a possibility?”_

            “Are you scared?” Shion asked, and Nezumi glanced away from the television again, looked at Shion.

            He took his spoon from his lips. “Of the boogeyman?”

            “At least I know when to expect it and what day to fear. But any day now, you might wake up with it. With your hair white and your eyes red. You don’t know when your actual birthday is. You could turn eighteen any day, this could happen to you any day,” Shion insisted, his eyebrows creased, and Nezumi could feel Shion’s worry just as easily as he could feel the cool of his brain freeze numbing his forehead.

            “I know when my birthday is. It’s September seventh,” Nezumi replied slowly.

            Shion just looked at him. In the background, the expert on amoritis was giving an overview of the disease, as if anyone might not know about it.

            _“…but those are just the physical effects. The most prominent symptom, however, is invisible, and one that has caused the infamy of this disease as well as the unrest of the entire scientific community – even leading to disbelievers of amoritis, who insist it must be a psychological influence, much like the placebo effect. This particular symptom is what has fascinated and dumbfounded researchers for centuries – and it is, of course, that anyone who falls in love with a victim of amoritis will die. The nebulous nature of this symptom is eternal. What defines falling in love? How in love does one have to fall before he or she is met with death? How does the disease differentiate familial and platonic love – loves that are unaffected – with romantic love – the only type of love that seems to pose a threat to he or she that feels it? How can a disease cause death to an individual outside the body of the host of the disease itself? Why is it that amoritis causes death to the one who falls in love with the host, and not the host him-or-herself? The questions are endless and eternal, but the most probing question today is if this disease has left with the passing of its last victim.”_

            “I’m not scared,” Nezumi told Shion, who still looked at him. “And you shouldn’t be either. I promised I wouldn’t get it, and I don’t break my promises. Do you?”

            Shion shook his head. “No.”

            Nezumi nudged Shion’s shoulder with his own. “Besides, unless you plan on falling in love with me, it won’t matter if I wake up like an albino any day now. You’ll only die if you’re head over heels for me. You’ve got nothing to worry about, Your Majesty. Am I right?”

            Shion’s eyes flicked between Nezumi’s. His smile was small and slow and spreading. “You’re right,” he nodded.

            Nezumi looked back at the television. He listened to the sound of Shion’s spoon scraping against his ice cream bowl and didn’t hear another word that the amoritis expert said.

 

_present_

Inside the bakery was so familiar Nezumi almost walked right back out.

            The smell hit him first, nauseatingly sweet – and it was nauseating, Nezumi had spent his last days in this bakery vomiting.

            The sounds, the tinker of silverware against glass plates, the muted chatter, the ding of the door as he opened it, the soft scrape of chairs, the gushes of sudden admiration – _Holy shit, this scone is good! You’ve gotta try this, babe, just a bite!_

            The warmth, a coat of heat, not unpleasant but enveloping like a jacket pulled over the shoulders, warm from someone else’s body.          

            The look, everything the same, exactly the same, and Nezumi pressed his hand hard against the flat of his stomach and breathed deeply.

            He wasn’t nauseous. It was psychological. The reminder of this place, and that was it, tricking his body into thinking it was four years ago when he last stood in this bakery, fourteen years ago when he first stood in it.

            He swallowed and took another deep breath, let it out slowly and evenly, then chanced a look at the counter.

            Karan stood behind it looking at him, and then she was smiling wide, and it was Shion’s wide smile, and Nezumi had to swallow again, harder this time, and remind himself he was not in love with a smile, he was not in love with anyone, and that was why it was okay to come back.

            “Nezumi,” she said, and she was running out from behind the counter, and she was hugging Nezumi before he realized she was in front of him, and he took a step back to steady himself from the impact of her body and the solidity of it, the warmth of it and the familiarity.

            “Karan. Hi,” Nezumi murmured, lifting his arms weakly, hugging her back but not too tightly. He hadn’t hugged or been hugged for four years. It was long enough to forget and not long enough to be difficult to remember, and he was scared to let her go, but she didn’t leave him quickly.

            She stayed and squeezed more tightly. Nezumi was glad when it hurt. He blinked and breathed. Her hair touched his lips. Strands stuck until she let him go, pulled away from him, but not fully and not far – her hands were still on his body, rising up to his shoulders, a hand lifting higher to cup his jaw, touch his cheek.

            “Oh, Nezumi,” she said, and her eyes were wet, and Nezumi couldn’t bear to look at her but he couldn’t stand to look away.

            “You don’t look a day older than when I left,” Nezumi said, making himself smile at this woman who shared her home with him for ten years, this woman who had loved him without question, this woman who had been his family without hesitance.

            “I didn’t know what had happened to you. You didn’t send a letter, and I thought, surely you would at least send a letter, if you hadn’t that must mean – ” Karan took her hand from Nezumi’s cheek to press it against her lips. A drop of water slipped from the outside corner of her eye.

            Nezumi’s chest tightened. He hadn’t realized. He hadn’t known the conclusion Karan would jump to, and the thought of it wracked him with guilt, emptied his breath from his lungs. “I’m sorry, Karan. I’m sorry.”

            “Four years, Nezumi, and I thought you were – I thought you had – ”

            “I’m okay. I’m here now, and I’m okay,” Nezumi insisted, worried, shaken, terrified that he’d let Karan think something had happened to him. “I’m sorry.”

            “You’re here,” Karan said, her hands reaching again, both cupping Nezumi’s face, and he loved the soft of her palms, loved that they felt just like the dough she rolled beneath them, just like the dough she taught Nezumi to knead –

            _Think of the dough like a living thing, Nezumi. Knead it gently, just enough to feel its heartbeat, but never hard enough to bruise it._

When Karan hugged him again, Nezumi tucked his face into her neck. Breathed her in, the flour of her, the dough of her, and pretended it was years ago, when he was a child and Karan’s body could envelop him, engulf him, encircle him and keep him safe.

 

_thirteen years ago_

The day Nezumi left the guest room of the floor above the bakery and moved into the orphanage, Karan insisted she come with him.

            “I don’t need to be dropped off,” he’d told her, but she hadn’t listened.

            Of course, Shion had come too. “I don’t get why he can’t keep living with us. Why aren’t you living with us?”

            “Shut up, Shion,” Nezumi said, and then they were in front of the orphanage, and Nezumi held his hand out for his small suitcase that used to be Shion’s.

            Karan didn’t give it to him. She’d insisted she carry it on the walk to the orphanage, which was only three blocks, it wasn’t like Nezumi couldn’t carry it himself, but Karan was just as stubborn as her son.

            Karan crouched in front of Nezumi. She let go of the suitcase only to take Nezumi’s hands in hers, and he tried to pull them free, but she tightened her hands around his.

            “Nezumi. Listen to me. You know I want you to stay with us, right?”

            “I know,” Nezumi mumbled, looking away from Karan’s gaze, which was too serious on his.

            “You’re sure this is what you want?” she asked.

            Nezumi looked to the side, at the orphanage. This was not what he wanted. He liked the guest room in Karan and Shion’s home, the floor above the bakery. He liked how the smell of the baked goods slipped under his door in the early mornings. He liked waking up from a nightmare to find that Shion had slipped under his blankets, was there with his wide brown eyes on Nezumi. He liked that Shion didn’t say a word to him, and he liked that Shion always stayed with him until the morning.

            Nezumi liked waking early and helping Karan in the bakery. She didn’t let him go near the oven, but she let him mix batter and she taught him how to knead dough with his knuckles, careful and soft.

            Nezumi liked walking to school with Shion after Karan talked to the principal and had Nezumi enrolled. He liked reading the books on Shion’s bookshelf. He liked lying on Shion’s carpet and bothering Shion while he tried to do homework. He liked when Karan knocked on Shion’s door and brought in a plate of cookies for them as a snack.

            But Nezumi did not like that he was not supposed to be there. He slept in the guest room, even though Karan and Shion called it _Nezumi’s room_ after the first two weeks, but it was still the guest room, and Nezumi knew that.

            Nezumi did not want to go to the orphanage that he’d researched using the computer in Shion’s room. Nezumi did not want to be an orphan like the kids who lived in this building, but he was an orphan like the kids who lived in this building.

            He was not Karan’s son, and he thought it best for her to remember that, just as he thought it best for himself to remember.

            He was no one’s son, and he hadn’t been for over a year, and that wasn’t going to change no matter how many goodnight kisses Karan pressed against his forehead right after she tucked her real son into bed.

            “This is what I want,” Nezumi told Karan. He didn’t like lying to her, but it was better than being raised by her, taken care of by her, a burden to her when they were just supposed to be strangers – Nezumi couldn’t remember when that had changed.

            Karan lifted her hand. Tucked Nezumi’s hair behind his ear, then leaned forward, wrapped her arms around him, and it was the first time Nezumi had been hugged by her, the first time he’d been hugged by anyone since he’d had a family of his own – but they were gone now, had been gone for a while, no use thinking of them.

            “You’ll still come over all the time, okay? After school, come back with Shion, and before school, you can come over for breakfast so you can walk there with Shion sometimes, right?” Karan asked over Nezumi’s shoulder while Nezumi stood stiffly in her arms, staring straight into the air above her shoulder.

            “Okay.”

            “You promise? You won’t make me worry about you, you won’t stay away for too long?”

            “I promise,” Nezumi said, just so she would let go of him. He felt tight all over, hot and wiry. He needed her to let go. She was warm and soft and safe and he needed her to let go.

            She let go, but only halfway, keeping her hands on Nezumi’s shoulders. “You are always welcome. Your room will always be there for you, whether you want to stay for one night or the rest of your life.”

            Nezumi nodded. His eyes prickled. He wanted to run into the orphanage. He wanted to be out of Karan’s sight, and Shion’s too, who was silent beside her.

            “Oh, sweetie. Okay. If this is what you want, you can go. But you know that I love you.”

            “I know,” Nezumi said, but his voice was just a breath, and he stepped away from Karan, then quickly forward to grab his suitcase that was really Shion’s filled with clothes that were mostly Shion’s too.

            He ran up the stairs of the orphanage, hearing Shion’s shout behind him.

            “Hey, you didn’t say goodbye to me!”

            Nezumi didn’t turn around. He burst through the orphanage doors, where he’d been three times previously, accompanied by Karan who inspected all of the rooms and interrogated all of the employees and asked too many questions while Nezumi had tried to tune her out and imagine himself living here.

            The bakery was just a few blocks away. Nezumi knew he could visit as often as he wanted, and he knew he would, just because Shion would be sure to be a complete nuisance at school if Nezumi didn’t hang out with him.

            But somehow, standing in the entranceway of the orphanage alone, Nezumi thought the bakery and Karan and Shion and the guest room that they called _Nezumi’s room_ felt lifetimes away.

 

_four years ago_

Nezumi knew he’d be sleeping over at the bakery on the night of Shion’s eighteenth birthday. He’d slept over the entire week, only returning to the orphanage twice because his social worker insisted that if he was going to be at bakery for long periods of time, he had to check in at least once every three days.

            It was not rare for Nezumi to spend nights at the bakery in the guest room that had accumulated enough of his possessions and clothing that Nezumi hadn’t needed to bring an overnight bag in years. It was rare for Nezumi to spend more than three nights at a time at the bakery, but Shion’s nervousness was palpable, and Nezumi knew Shion wanted him close by in the days leading up to his birthday – Shion hadn’t told him, but after ten years of knowing him, Nezumi could read Shion like a book.

            Everyone dreaded their eighteenth birthday. It’d been that way for centuries since the first outbreak of amoritis, and Shion was particularly neurotic. Having centuries of people to validate his behavior wasn’t doing him any good.

            Now it was nearly midnight. Nezumi sat cross-legged in the center of Shion’s bed and watched Shion pace his room.

            “I have a math test tomorrow,” Nezumi reminded.

            “You can’t seriously be suggesting you go to bed three minutes before I turn eighteen.”

            “I’m turning eighteen too,” Nezumi said, smiling when Shion stopped pacing to glare at him.

            “You’re supposed to be distracting me.”

            Nezumi sighed. “Calm down, Your Majesty. No one’s been afflicted in forty-four years worldwide. I know you think you’re special, but you really have to stop thinking you’re universally exceptional.”

            “What time is it?” Shion asked, looking at his watch, and Nezumi assumed he was being ignored.

            Nezumi looked over his shoulder at the clock on Shion’s nightstand. “You’ve got a minute.”

            “Oh,” Shion breathed, and when Nezumi looked at him, it was to see the boy was pale.

            Nezumi considered his friend. Shook his head and tapped a space on the bed beside him. “Come here, Your Majesty. Sit down, you look like you’re going to pass out.”

            “I know it’s dumb to be nervous.”

            “Yes, it is.”

            Shion looked at Nezumi helplessly, then came over, sat on the edge of the bed.

            Nezumi uncrossed his legs, scooched to the edge of the bed to sit beside him, legs over the edge and his thigh against Shion’s. “Want me to get the mirror?”

            “No. I don’t want to look. You have to tell me.”

            Nezumi inspected him. Brown hair, brown eyes, skin completely free from scars. Nezumi considered telling Shion to undress, just for the purpose of being absolutely certain no scar was appearing in some secret place on his body, but he held his tongue.

            Nezumi preferred his fantasies in his head. No need to burden Shion with them. The kid was tense enough, especially at this moment.

            “You know you’re not going to get it, right?” Nezumi asked, and Shion nodded.

            “I know.”

            “And if you do, that’s fine,” Nezumi said, even though it wouldn’t be, but Shion didn’t need to know that.

            Shion nodded. Breathed deeply. “I know. You’re right. You’re right.” He looked at his watch again. “Seven seconds,” he whispered, and Nezumi stood up so he could stand in front of Shion, look at him fully when nothing changed.

            Shion kept his head down, staring at his watch, and Nezumi looked at the crown of his head, the soft brown hair that Nezumi still remembered stringing his fingers through three birthdays ago –

            _Put your hands in my hair too._

            Shion was murmuring under his breath, just loud enough for Nezumi to hear him. “…three, two, one – ”

            Immediately, Nezumi felt the nausea. The feeling was so sudden and encompassing it took a few seconds for him to stop reeling from it and notice that Shion’s hair was no longer brown.

            It was bright white, and Shion was looking up, and his eyes were a vivid red, and there was a scar on his cheek, pink and raised, and Nezumi’s heart sank while his skin burned.

            “Fuck,” he breathed, and then he ran from Shion’s room, just making it to the bathroom to fall on his knees in front of the toilet and vomit into it.

            Shion was crouched beside him in seconds, and when he touched Nezumi’s back, Nezumi’s skin burned. He gripped the sides of the toilet harder, his nails digging into the ceramic and pushing back into his nail beds.

            “Nezumi, are you okay?”

            Nezumi was not okay. He needed Shion to stop rubbing his back. His body was shaking and electric.

            “Shion, stop touching me,” he managed between retches, and Shion’s hand froze, then retracted from his back.

            “What’s going on?” Shion asked, after a second, his concern rising his voice, and Nezumi just shook his head, kept vomiting, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.

            Death was not supposed to be immediate. Nezumi knew he had time. He’d get worse and weaken, but he’d have time. At least a few months. Doubtful he’d get a year. He tried to think, tried to figure it out, but it was hard to do anything but vomit.

            The symptoms were not the same for everyone. Some people vomited. Some people got nosebleeds. Some people had fainting spells. Some people had brain damage, memory loss, spasms. Some people wet themselves. Some convulsed. Some had seizures. Some had a combination of symptoms. Some had no symptoms at all and just died, just like that, one day there and the next gone.

            “Nezumi – ”

            Nezumi was dry heaving now, nothing left in him, and stopped after another minute. He stayed over the toilet and breathed. There was sweat on his hairline, and it slicked through his bangs when he pushed them off his forehead. He reached out, caught a few squares of toilet paper, and used them to wipe his lips before glancing at Shion, who crouched beside him, staring at him.

            “Food poisoning,” Nezumi said, not knowing where the lie came from, why it was even necessary, what good it would do.

            He hadn’t wanted Shion to find out like this. He hadn’t wanted Shion to find out at all.

            _And you promise you won’t fall in love with me?_

_I won’t if you don’t._

            Shion’s eyes were wide and very red. Nezumi had never seen the eyes of anyone with amoritis in person. He’d never seen anyone with amoritis in person, except once, when he was very young, a person in the market with bright white hair.

            Most people dyed their hair. Wore colored contacts made specifically for people with amoritis – dark enough to cover the vivid red of their eyes. There was make-up for the scars, but those were still not so easily hidden. Some people had scars that covered the entirety of their faces. Some had scars like spider webs climbing over their fingers and hands and wrists.

            Shion’s was a stripe on his cheek. On closer look, Nezumi could see he had a similar stripe on his neck, as if it was a string winding around him. It disappeared under the collar of his t-shirt, and Nezumi wondered, vaguely, how far it went.

            “Why are you looking at me like that?” Shion asked, while Nezumi was inspecting the white of his hair – strange, how it looked even softer than before, strange, how Shion’s appearance, as bizarre as it now was, was familiar even so.

            “What?” Nezumi asked. His voice was hoarse. He still felt shaky, and over his skin were flashes of cold and heat, as if he had a fever. His stomach rolled, and he tried to ignore it.

            He hadn’t considered what he would do if Shion developed amoritis. He hadn’t thought it was a possibility. He hadn’t thought about it at all.

            Shion looked confused, and Nezumi understood. Shion didn’t realize. He didn’t know. He was always an idiot, and even now, he couldn’t figure it out.

            He’d been worried about his eighteenth birthday for months, but forgot about it completely with Nezumi vomiting into his toilet.

            “I said, why are you looking at me like that?” Shion asked again.

             “No reason,” Nezumi said, as if Shion wouldn’t find out soon enough, and he stood up, his legs shaking and unsteady and Nezumi almost fell over.

            He steadied himself against the sink. Refused to pass out. Flushed the toilet and his vomit and ducked down to rinse his mouth, then reached for the mouthwash.

            Shion was still crouched beside the toilet. Nezumi looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like a person who was dying, which he supposed he was.

            Shion stood up slowly. Nezumi spit out his mouthwash and turned on the faucet to wash it down. Shion was beside him then, and Nezumi turned off the faucet just as Shion looked into the mirror.

            Shion shouted and jumped back, his hands in his hair.

            Nezumi pressed a face towel to his lips. Replaced it on the rack. Watched Shion’s horror only through his reflection in the mirror. Couldn’t stop looking at Shion, his strange appearance, kept thinking he would blink and Shion would be normal again – just the boy he always had been, brown eyes, brown hair, clear skin.

            When Shion dropped his hands from his hair, his eyes shifted to Nezumi, but Nezumi didn’t look away from the mirror. It felt safer to look at Shion through some sort of third party, a reflection. To look at him fully might have Nezumi vomiting again. As it was, Nezumi was finding it incredibly difficult to simply stay standing.

            He tried to breathe and found that he couldn’t take deep breaths. He felt as if he were breathing through a straw. He wondered if the feeling would fade, if it was only this strong because Shion was only just afflicted. Nezumi couldn’t imagine months of this.

            Months. He only had months. A dizziness hit, and Nezumi had to hold on to the edge of the sink.

            “Nezumi,” Shion breathed, and in his reflection there was slow recognition, an understanding. “You can’t,” he whispered, and then there was a knock on the bathroom door while Nezumi tried to pretend he hadn’t heard Shion’s whisper.

            _You can’t._ As if it was Nezumi’s fault. As if any of this was Nezumi’s choice. As if Nezumi wanted to fall in love with an idiot like this, as if Nezumi wanted to die because this idiot, out of everyone in the world for forty-four years, had gone and developed the rarest disease to have ever existed, a disease that was supposed to be wiped out of the human race – wasn’t that what those damn experts had said?

            “Boys?” It was Karan.

            “Come in,” Nezumi said, because Shion didn’t say anything, and Nezumi couldn’t stand to be alone with him for another second.

            The bathroom door opened, and Karan stood in the doorway looking at Shion, gasping, looking at Nezumi, her face falling, looking back at Shion.

            “Oh, no, Shion,” she said softly.

            Nezumi tried not to feel disappointed at her sorrow. He didn’t know why he’d expected her to be able to assess the situation and quickly fix it. He didn’t know what sort of action from Karan he’d anticipated.

            He’d always thought Karan was a woman who could fix things, a woman who was composed in a crisis, who could take a bleeding boy out of a storm and fix him up and give him a shower and a bed and a friend and a family and a home – if she could do all of that, couldn’t she fix this?

            But no one could fix this. They’d been trying to find a cure for centuries, they’d had clinical trials and kept afflicted people in wards and studied them for decades, and nothing had ever been fixed. What was Karan supposed to do?

            Nezumi closed his eyes. His body had begun pulsing with a dull sort of ache, or maybe it’d been doing that all along. The room was spinning around him. He couldn’t do this for months. He couldn’t do it for another minute.

            “Nezumi, honey – ”

            Nezumi felt his fingers loosening from the sink. He passed out before he could hear whatever useless words Karan was attempting to offer him, as if anything she said could change his fate.

*


	2. Chapter 2

_six years ago_

Nezumi was spending the night at the bakery because he’d stayed over late doing homework with Shion after helping Karan in the kitchen, and he hadn’t wanted to brave the cold winter night to return to the orphanage.

            He didn’t have nightmares every night, but he had nightmares most nights, and when he woke that night, it was to see Shion settling into the guest room bed beside him.

            Nezumi usually said nothing about Shion coming into bed with him, and Shion didn’t say anything either. He’d been doing it for eight years, since Nezumi first slept in this bed. It was normal. It wasn’t anything to question.

            Now, Nezumi questioned it. Shion was his best friend. His only friend, but Nezumi didn’t see the need for more. Shion was a handful as it was.

            Nezumi was also quite clear on the fact that they were friends. Nothing more, and that was fine with him, Nezumi hardly knew anything about romantic relationships and was certain he’d mess it up somehow if Shion even wanted it – which he did not, or he would have said so, because Shion always found it necessary to say everything he was thinking.

            “You don’t have to sleep here,” Nezumi said, and Shion opened his eyes that he’d closed immediately upon settling.

            “Hm, what?” Shion asked, his voice soft and slow, heavy with sleep.

            Nezumi sat up. His heart was calming and his skin was no longer chilled and he’d mostly forgotten his nightmare already.

            Shion peered up at him. He lifted a hand from beneath the blanket to rub at his eyes. “Nezumi?” he asked.

            “What do you do? Lie awake at night waiting to hear me shout in my sleep so you can come here?” Nezumi demanded. He was angry, he realized. His skin was hot. He didn’t know why he was angry, and he didn’t want to know why.

            Shion pushed himself up, his hand on the mattress, the blanket falling from his shoulder.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “What’s wrong? Nothing’s wrong. I don’t need you to sleep beside me. I’m not some helpless kid any longer. I’m a big boy, Shion, I can sleep without you gracing my presence, I don’t need you to rescue me or whatever crap you think you’re doing here – ”

            “Nezumi, shh, my mom’s sleeping – ”

            “I don’t give a shit about your mom!” Nezumi shouted, but he did, and he lowered his voice. “Listen, don’t kid yourself, Shion. I don’t need you. I sleep without anyone crawling into my bed at the orphanage just fine.”

            “Are you angry with me?” Shion asked, looking confused and sleepy, rubbing again at his eyes.

            “Yeah, Shion, I’m angry with you,” Nezumi said dryly, and Shion nodded slowly, as if absorbing the words.

            “Okay. Do you not want me to sleep here anymore? I didn’t know it made you uncomfortable.”

            “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable,” Nezumi snapped. “That’s not the point.”

            “What’s the point?”    

            Nezumi stared at him. He didn’t know what the point was. He didn’t know why he had to have a point – he wasn’t writing a paper for class, was he?

            Shion sighed, shook his head. “I know you don’t need me, Nezumi. That’s not why I come here when you have nightmares.”

            “Then why do you come here?”

            Shion shrugged. “It’s what I’ve always done. It just a reflex, I don’t really think about it. But I’ll stop if you want me to.”

            Nezumi didn’t want Shion to stop coming to sleep beside him in the middle of the night. He didn’t know what he wanted.

            “I don’t care,” he said, flopping back on the bed and turning over so he didn’t have to see Shion.

            He could feel the mattress shifting behind him as Shion laid back down.

            “I can leave if you want me to, Nezumi. I won’t be offended. It’s okay.”

            “I don’t want you to,” Nezumi said, to the wall across from the bed that he stared at.

            Shion was silent for a long while, and Nezumi assumed he’d fallen asleep, though Nezumi himself felt wide awake.

            After what had to be several minutes, however, Shion was speaking again. “Now that I think about it, maybe it’s selfish,” he mused. “I sleep better when I’m in your bed.”

            Nezumi said nothing. He decided to pretend he was asleep. It was easier than to think of a reply.

 

_present_

Karan kept crying. Nezumi didn’t know what to do about this and kept heating up her tea, which she wasn’t drinking because she was crying.

            They sat in the kitchen. Karan had closed the bakery early even though Nezumi insisted she didn’t, but he had to stop arguing with her because she did not seem to be in a state to be argued with.

            Nezumi stared at the heaping tray of baked goods in front of him – cookies, scones, slices of pie, macaroons, brownies, slices of cake, donut holes, muffins, tarts, lemon bars, fluff pastries. He stared at them because he couldn’t eat them. He was trying to stop himself from vomiting, and he hadn’t eaten anything all day. It seemed foolish to put anything in his mouth with such a high risk of it coming right back up.

            “I’m sorry, I’m done, I’m done,” Karan said, as she’d said several times before, wiping her face with one of the used tissues balled in front of her.

            “It’s okay,” Nezumi said weakly.

            “I haven’t seen you in four years, and I thought – ”

            “I know,” Nezumi interrupted.

            “You are my son, Nezumi, and you disappeared without a letter – ”

            Nezumi did not point out that he was not Karan’s son, as he knew the uselessness of such a statement at this moment. “Karan, I know, I’m sorry – ”

            “And I thought – I had to think – ”

            “It’s really okay, it’s done now, I’m here, so you don’t have to think about that now – ” Nezumi insisted, needing to talk about anything else but the fact that he’d let Karan think he’d died for four years.

            He was doing his best not to think about whether Shion – whose whereabouts he still hadn’t been able to uncover – was under the same impression as his mother.

            “It didn’t seem like there was any other outcome, what with Shion’s amoritis and the way you felt – ” Karan cut herself off this time without Nezumi interrupting.

            As it was, Nezumi could not speak. He stared at her, and she looked apologetic.

            “I’m sorry, honey.”

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            “It’s okay.”

            “What’s okay?”          

            “You don’t have to talk about it with me if you don’t want to. I understand that I might not be the person you’d want to talk about it with,” Karan said, too understandingly, reaching over to squeeze Nezumi’s hand, and Nezumi wanted to pull away, but he hadn’t had much human contact in four years.

            “Talk about what?” Nezumi asked, and he didn’t know why he was asking because he didn’t want Karan to answer – she was right, he didn’t want to talk about it, especially not with her.

            “If he didn’t have amoritis, there is no one I would want to love my son more than you, honey,” Karan said softly, and Nezumi slipped his hand from hers, opened his mouth to deny it.

            _I don’t love him._

            When Nezumi opened his mouth, his stomach rolled, and he immediately covered his lips with his hand, stumbled up from the stool and made it to the kitchen sink where he dry heaved over the unwashed cupcake pans that filled it.

            Immediately, there was Karan’s hand on his back, and it was too familiar, and that was the problem.

            Nezumi left this place to fall out of love, and he had, he knew he had because he was alive. He knew how to repress memories, he knew how to forget people, and he’d done it, and then he’d come back, thought it was safe to come back, what an idiot he’d been.

            “Oh, honey,” Karan said sadly, while Nezumi dug his elbows into both sides of the sink and hung his head over it.          

            He was exhausted. His body felt worn. The feeling of dying was like a weight, a dull ache under his skin and a flickering of heat over it one second, then cold the next.

            Nezumi was twenty-two. He turned twenty-two two weeks before, and so had Shion – on September seventh, the birthday they shared because Shion insisted they share it. On their birthday, Nezumi had thought of Shion vaguely, but he’d felt nothing.

            Now, he felt everything, and it was killing him as if there hadn’t been four years at all, as if he hadn’t left at all, as if all the time he’d put into putting aside what he felt for Shion was wasted, useless.

            Nezumi made himself stand up straight. He pushed his bangs from his eyes and looked at Karan, who took her hand from his back.

            “How are you still alive?” she asked softly.

            Nezumi hoped she couldn’t tell that his entire body hurt. “Because I left.”

            Karan reached up. Tucked Nezumi’s bangs behind his ear and left her fingers in his hair. “I thought I’d never see you again. You’ve grown so much, but you’re still so young. I don’t want you to ever leave, but if you have to, if that’s what you need to do to stay alive, then I need you to do that. Do you understand?”

            Nezumi shook his head. He didn’t understand. This woman said she was his family. This woman said he was her son. She wanted him to leave? He’d been alone for four years, and she wanted him to do that again?

            Nezumi couldn’t stand the thought. He’d forgotten what it was to be in this bakery, but now he remembered, now everything came back, and if part of that everything was dry heaving in the sink, then fine.

            Nezumi would do that. Karan didn’t know what it was like to be alone. She didn’t have a clue.

            “Nezumi, listen – ”

            “I’ll be fine. I feel fine,” Nezumi interrupted, stepping away from her hand.

            Karan looked pained, as if she was the one whose body was sore, who had a headache and felt nauseous and dizzy and feverish all at once, undeniable, but Nezumi would deny it anyway.

            “I know it’s hard – ”

            “You don’t know, actually,” Nezumi snapped, and he wanted to walk away from her, but she was the only one who’d know where Shion was. “Can you just tell me where he is?”

            “I don’t think it’s a good idea, honey, look at you, you’re so pale, maybe you should lie down – ”

            “I don’t need to lie down.”

            “Nezumi – ”

            “Karan, I’m not going to die. I don’t love Shion. It’s all psychological, it’s in my head, this place is like a trigger, it’s just a memory thing, the last time I was in this bakery I was dying. But I’m not anymore, it’s been four years, I’m not dying anymore. Just tell me where he is. Please, Karan.”

            Karan looked at Nezumi the way Shion used to. Her brown eyes flicking between his, just like Shion’s eyes, but his weren’t brown anymore.

            There were others. Nezumi saw them on the news. Shion was the first after forty-four years, but just a week after his birthday, a girl who turned eighteen in Tennessee was afflicted, and in the next month, there were two people in Kenya, another in Seoul, and another in Ireland. By the middle of the next year, there were three people afflicted in London, another in Canada, four in Brazil, one in Guyana, one in Libya, seven in Dubai.

            The rates of affliction had gone up severely, and then they went down again, now were back to their previous scale – about two or three afflictions a year.

            “He just graduated. He’s not here. He stayed in Tokyo where he went to university,” Karan finally said.

            “Do you have his address?”

            Karan shook her head. “Nezumi – ”

            “Mom? Why is the bakery closed so early?”

            Nezumi turned. Shion’s voice came from the front of the bakery. Nezumi’s heart rammed his chest and a wave of pain and nausea towed through him so that Nezumi’s knees nearly buckled with it. He reached out, grasped the counter beside the sink to stay standing.

            “You lied to me?” he asked Karan, even though he didn’t have to ask – clearly, Shion wasn’t in Tokyo, clearly, Karan had lied – but Nezumi couldn’t believe it.

            Karan was not a woman who lied. She had integrity. She was honest in a way Nezumi had always admired.

            Nezumi’s voice came out cracked, part breath. The pain was overwhelming, and he worried he’d black out. He knew it was from hearing Shion’s voice. He knew his body thought he was in love, but he wasn’t, he wasn’t, it was just in his head, it was just a reminder, it was just a trigger, a memory of what he’d felt but not the real thing, and he reminded himself of this, told himself this – he didn’t have any reason to feel like he was dying because he was not, he was not.

            Karan’s eyes were wide. Nezumi couldn’t keep himself standing, dropped to his knees, and the floor of the kitchen was hard as he fell, pain shot up his legs, a distraction from the pain that burned his skin.

            “Fuck,” he breathed.

            “Nezumi,” Karan said, crouching beside him, her hand on his shoulder. “Just breathe. Just breathe, I’m going to make him leave and come right back. Sit down, honey, rest against the cabinets, I’ll come back and help you to bed, just try to breathe.”

            Nezumi couldn’t breathe. His eyes were closed and he didn’t remember closing them. He felt Karan arranging his body, and then he was leaning against something – the cabinets, he assumed – and he pulled his knees to his chest and ducked his head into the space between them to hide his face from Karan, trying not to make noise.

            “I’m going to leave you, but I’ll be right back,” Karan promised, and then her touch was gone, and there was no distraction from the pain.

            “Mom, are you in the kitchen?” Shion called, closer now, and Nezumi’s body wracked with a new wave of pain, this one strong enough that his head was swimming and he moaned into his knees, and then everything was black.

 

_seven years ago_

“What would you do if you fell in love with someone who had amoritis?”

            Nezumi shut his locker to reveal Safu. “I thought you didn’t believe in it.”

            “I don’t,” Safu replied. “It’s psychological. The entire premise of such a disease simply isn’t logical. How can a disease affect someone who doesn’t have it?”

            “It’s contagious. Releases pheromones when someone’s in love or something,” Nezumi said, pulling his backpack over his shoulder and following Safu down the hall.

            “That’s not how love works, Nezumi.”

            “Oh? Educate me.”

            “And amoritis doesn’t have anything to do with distance. People in love with amoritis hosts often travel far away but never escape death.”

            “Yet you don’t believe in it.”

            “I believe it’s psychological,” Safu replied.

            “Why are we talking about this?” Nezumi asked mildly.

            “I had a sub in my Biology class and she had us watch the amoritis documentary.”

            Nezumi shook his head. “Shion loves that doc.”

            “That’s because Shion, like most people, is fascinated in the concept of amoritis. What I find fascinating about amoritis is that so many people accept such a nonsensical symptom to be a real part of the disease.”

            They made it to their Literature class, a course they shared, and Nezumi opened the door for Safu, then followed her in.

            “Even if you’re right, and it is psychological, the end result is the same. If you love an amoritis host, you’re doomed to kick the bucket,” Nezumi said, while they took their seats in the front of the classroom.

            Nezumi preferred the back, but Safu preferred the front, and Nezumi preferred talking to her than anyone else in the class.

            “If it’s psychological, you’re not doomed. Instead of all this research being put into a biological cure, they could put their funding and research into some sort of therapeutic method to help both amoritis hosts and those in love with them understand that they’re not, in fact, doomed.”

            “Look at you with all the answers,” Nezumi said, dropping his backpack and watching Safu organize her class notebook and pens and the book they were currently reading – _Beowulf_ – on her desk the way she always did.

            “You didn’t answer my question,” she said, adjusting her eraser so that it was perfectly parallel to her notebook.

            “What was that?”

            Safu looked at him. “What would you do if you fell in love with an amoritis host?”

            Nezumi smiled as the professor walked in and called for their attention. “I’d probably die,” he said, and Safu laughed lightly and shook her head.

            “One day, I’ll have you take me seriously,” she whispered under her breath.

            “Promise?” Nezumi whispered back, and she rolled her eyes.

            “You and Shion with your promises.”

            “Safu! Nezumi! Pay attention, please!”

            “Sorry, professor,” Nezumi and Safu apologized, in unison, as they often found themselves doing whenever they shared a class.

 

_four years ago_

“If you die, he’ll blame himself. You know he will.”

            Nezumi was sprawled on the bathroom floor beside the toilet, where he had basically lived since Shion’s eighteenth birthday three days before. He laid with his arm out and his head rested on the crease of his elbow.

            “I’m not going to die,” Nezumi managed, not having the energy to lift his head and look at Safu, who sat on the edge of the bathtub.

            “Of course you are. That’s what amoritis does. I know you’ve seen the documentary.”

            Nezumi didn’t have the energy to laugh, but he wished he did, just to humor her. He knew she was trying to cheer him up, in her own way.

            “I don’t love him.”

            “Don’t be silly,” Safu said, and Nezumi felt something touching his side, managed to lift his head enough to see that it was Safu, who’d slipped down from the ledge of the bath to sit on the floor beside him.

            “Shion thinks it’s food poisoning,” Nezumi breathed, unable to speak any louder than a whisper.

            He hadn’t been able to eat in three days. He was constantly tired and constantly nauseous and constantly in pain. He knew he was supposed to have months – that was what everyone said, that was what everyone got, he was allowed months before he died, but he was unsure about this. He felt as if he could die in an hour. He didn’t know how to last like this.

            “He doesn’t think that.”

            “Yes, he does.”

            “He wants to think that. He’s letting you tell him that because you look awful, and he doesn’t want to make you upset or argue with you. But he doesn’t think that.”

            “Don’t you care about making me upset and arguing with me?” Nezumi muttered, and he felt Safu’s hand slip into his.

            “Is it really painful?”

            Nezumi chose not to answer. He closed his eyes.

            “I thought you were supposed to have months,” Safu said quietly.

            _Me too,_ Nezumi thought, and he tried to move his lips but couldn’t be sure if he did so successfully.

            “I have a theory.”

            Nezumi squeezed Safu’s fingers to indicate that he wanted to hear it.

            Her hand was cool, and his own was burning. It was covered in sweat. His entire body was. The sweat chilled him so that he alternated between freezing cold and burning hot, sometimes feeling both at the same time.

            “I think the more a person loves the amoritis host, the quicker their death comes,” she said.

            Nezumi regretted squeezing her hand. He made himself open his eyes and stared at the side of the toilet.

            He was in Shion’s bathroom. He wanted to go to the orphanage, but Karan and Safu both wouldn’t help him get there, and the day before when he’d tried to make it down the stairs on his own, he’d slipped and tumbled down them and hadn’t been able to get up on his own.

            “You know, when Shion called me and told me, for a moment I worried I would be at risk of the psychological effects of amoritis. I love him, and I have always wondered if maybe I was in love, and how to tell the difference, really. But I don’t feel any different, so either I know how to avoid the traditional dangers of amoritis because I don’t believe in it and therefore the psychological effect doesn’t work on me, or I’m not really in love with him.”

            Nezumi concentrated on staying conscious. He’d spent a lot of the three days since Shion’s birthday blacked out. Once he woke up to Shion combing his hair, and the pain that struck him had been so immediate and severe that he’d started shouting without his own knowledge and blacked out again almost instantly.

            Shion had not returned to the bathroom since.

            “Is he okay?” Nezumi managed. His eyes were leaking, but he was lying on one arm and his other hand was being squeezed by Safu, so he couldn’t wipe at them. He felt a tear trail over the bridge of his nose before falling off to the tile floor.

            “I don’t think so,” Safu said. She was honest, and Nezumi had always appreciated this, but now he wanted her to lie to him.

            He closed his eyes again.

            “If you stay here, Nezumi, I think you’re going to die.”

            Nezumi was well aware of this.

            “I’ll help you leave. You can’t go to the orphanage. You have to leave completely and not come in contact with Shion again. It’ll be better if he doesn’t know what happens to you than if he knows for sure that you died in his bathroom.”

            “You want me to go somewhere far away to die,” Nezumi whispered, to clarify.

            Safu squeezed his hand so hard it hurt, but everything hurt anyway, and Nezumi preferred the pain she gave him.

            “He can’t see you die, Nezumi, it’ll change him, I know you understand. Losing you will be hard enough. I can’t lose him too. You two are all I have.”

            Nezumi realized Safu wasn’t suggesting this idea for Shion. She was suggesting it for herself.

            He’d never considered Safu to be his friend, and he wasn’t sure why. He’d thought of her as Shion’s friend, but now, with her squeezing his hand so that his bones jostled each other, Nezumi couldn’t imagine how he hadn’t understood long before now.

            Safu was his family, and he was hers.

            “Okay,” he breathed, even though he had no breath left in him. “Help me leave him.”

 

_present_

When Nezumi woke, he knew immediately where he was.

            It was where he’d woken countless times before, and most mornings when he woke, he could expect the same person in bed beside him.

            Nezumi turned to find the half of Karan’s guest room bed beside him occupied by not Shion, but Safu.

            She sat up against the headboard, and she was looking at him, and she said, while he took in how different she was from four years ago – “This wasn’t the plan.”

            “The plan?” Nezumi asked, after a few seconds. He pushed himself up so that he was sitting too.

            “How do you feel?”

            Nezumi shrugged. His body ached, but in a duller way. His nausea was present but not anything he felt the need to act on.

            “The point of you leaving was not for you to come back four years later, after he finished grieving you,” Safu said, after she seemed to assess him, a quick scan of her gaze.

            Nezumi tried to ignore the word _grieving_. “You look different.”

            “You look the same,” Safu replied, and Nezumi felt his lips twitch up.

            Safu’s hair was much longer, nearly down to her waist, and tied into a braid. It was longer than Nezumi’s hair, which it never had been for as long as he’d known her.

            Her shoulders were wider, and she seemed more like a woman, somehow, though Nezumi could not exactly place what in features made her seem this way. Maybe it was her face, he thought. Her cheeks were more hollowed out, her cheekbones more prominent.

            Her gaze was exactly the same, and Nezumi let himself be scrutinized by it, didn’t mind it at all. He felt as though no one had looked at him for four years – at least, not in a way in which he enjoyed being looked at.

            “And by the same,” Safu said, “I mean on your deathbed. Why would you come back if nothing changed?”

            “Something did change.”

            “And what would that be?”

            “I’m not on my deathbed, that’s a little dramatic. It’s psychological, like you used to say, but now it really is. It’s just the memory of being here again, that’s why I got sick. Physically, I’m fine.”

            “Physically, you passed out in Karan’s kitchen,” Safu corrected.

            Nezumi waved his hand. “Semantics,” he said, and Safu smiled.

            “It’s good to see you, Nezumi.”

            “Do you really mean that, or are you just saying that to be nice?”

            Safu leaned back. “I’d never say anything to be nice. Especially not to you,” she said, and Nezumi grinned.

            He glanced at the closed bedroom door without meaning to and looked quickly back at Safu, but her expression was too knowing.

            “You want to know where he is.”

            “Are you going to tell me?”

            “I don’t know where he is. Probably at his apartment. He usually helps out in the bakery in the afternoons after work, but after you appeared again without warning and passed out in the kitchen, Karan had to divert him. Maybe they went out to eat. She called me and asked me to stay with you.”

            “To babysit me so I don’t try to find him.”

            “Well, of course.”

            “So he doesn’t live in Tokyo?”

            Safu sighed and settled back against the headboard. “He did for a little while, I don’t think he wanted to be around here, but I got a job here, and Karan is here, so he ended up looking for a job here too and moving back once he got one. I don’t know that he wants to be here, particularly, but it’s better than being alone in the city.”

            “What does he do?”

            Safu crossed her legs in front of her. “He was a professor in the city at the same university where he got his degree, but here he teaches biology in high school. The same one we went to.”

            “Really?”

            “Yeah, he’s good at it too. I went to one of his classes once. It was weird being back there. It was hard for Shion at first, but he’s gotten used to it.”

            Nezumi nodded. “And what do you do?”

            “Do you really care?”

            “Sure.”

            Safu waved her hand. “You won’t believe it. I studied psychoanalysis and medicine. I’m doing online classes for my graduate degree while I work at a psychiatrist’s office. I want to get into research after I get my masters.”

            “Psychoanalysis and medicine,” Nezumi echoed slowly. “Does that mean – Are you really researching amoritis?”

            “I am,” Safu nodded.

            “You still think it’s all in people’s heads?”

            “You said so yourself.”

            “I never said that. I said I wasn’t in love with Shion anymore, and now my symptoms aren’t real but a copy of what they used to be.”

            “You never said that,” Safu countered.

            “And what does Shion think about your research?”

            “He doesn’t like to talk about it. He gets upset that my thesis basically states you died because you were foolish enough to believe the symptoms of amoritis are affecting your body when they’re actually not.”

            Nezumi froze halfway through Safu’s sentence. “He thinks I’m dead?” he asked, after a moment, and Safu tilted her head.

            “Well. Yes. We all assumed – ”

            “You thought I was dead?”

            “What was I supposed to think? I don’t know how you’re alive right now. My first hypothesis was that you finally understood that amoritis isn’t an actual manifestation in your body but a psychological effect, but clearly, that’s not the case.”

            “You were supposed to think I stopped loving him. I told you I’d stop, Safu. The last time we saw each other, I told you I’d be fine,” Nezumi said slowly, staring at Safu, who looked back with a crease deepening between her eyes.

            “You were lying to make me feel better.”

            “When have I ever lied to make you feel better?” Nezumi snapped, and he got out of bed, stood up and pushed his fingers into his hair. “What, did you guys throw a funeral for me?”

            Safu stood up too, raised her hands. “Nezumi, why are you getting upset? Yes, we mourned you, we thought you were dead, it was a reasonable thing to think given the state you were in the last time we saw you. Shion held out for a year, and then he just broke down. He took a semester off from college and didn’t leave his apartment for weeks, he lost twenty pounds he couldn’t afford to lose, I had to move to the city to take care of him because he wouldn’t move back here,” Safu said, and her voice was rising, and she was angry too, and Nezumi was relieved she was angry without knowing why.

             “When you told me I had to leave, you said it was so Shion wouldn’t know what happened to me. You said it was so he wouldn’t have to see me die,” Nezumi reminded, his voice hard.

            “It was! It would have been worse if you’d died in his house, do you think he’d ever have been able to step foot in here again? It was better this way, he was upset for a long time and it was terrifying, Nezumi, it was, and I thought for months he wouldn’t get better. Do you know the statistics of how many people with amoritis commit suicide after the people who love them die? I do, Nezumi, I looked it up, and it’s the scariest number I’ve ever seen in my life. I worried Shion would become a number, but he didn’t, he got better, he’s better now, and now you’re back, and you can’t be here! How can you have come back? He can’t get through your death again, I know he can’t!”

            “I wouldn’t have come back if I thought there was a chance I’d die.”

            “Look at you! You’re barely standing right now, and you haven’t even seen him. You think you don’t love him anymore, but you do.”

            “If it’s all psychological to you, isn’t what I think all that matters?” Nezumi countered.

            “It’s not psychological to you, Nezumi, so if you have any doubt that you’re over your previous feelings, then you’ll have doubt that you can stay alive. Your whole life, all of everyone’s lives, we’re told we can’t love a host of amoritis without dying. You’ve been conditioned since birth, Nezumi, your environment has shaped an understanding in you that might as well be innate. It’s unconscious, you wouldn’t be aware of it, that’s the nature of this psychological effect, so as long as you believe there’s any chance you might love him still, it’ll kill you. That’s why you’re sick right now.”

            “I’m sick because I associate this place with nearly dying – ”

            “Of course you don’t, Nezumi!” Safu shouted. “You associate the bakery with the best years of your life. You associate the bakery with people who loved you and people you loved. You associate the bakery with safety and warmth and finding a home, it was only in the last week out of ten years that you were dying here.”

            “Right. And you know everything. You always know everything, right, Safu? You haven’t changed one bit – ”

            “I know that if you see him, you’ll die, and he’ll have to go through all of that again, and so will I, and so will Karan. How can you take the chance to hurt everyone who loves you?”

            “You don’t love me. You think I’m dead, remember,” Nezumi snapped, and he walked out of the room, was halfway down the stairs when he heard Safu’s footsteps beside him.

            “Where are you going?”

            “Where did you put my boots?”

            Nezumi went to the kitchen, but his boots weren’t there. He left, walked around the empty front room with Safu lingering by the door.

            “Nezumi, you’re being selfish.”

            “Why shouldn’t I be?” Nezumi’s boots were not in the front room. He went to the back again, checked the storage cabinet and found his boots by the door.

            “I don’t know what your life was like after you left here, but even if it was hard, you have to know better than to do this now. You’re willing to die just to see him again? Just to see him for, I don’t know – how long do you think you’ll last? You hardly made it a week last time, now it’ll probably be worse since you haven’t seen him in so long, your feelings will hit you all at once, you won’t be able to help it. So you’ll get a couple days, and then you’ll die, and Shion won’t recover from it.”

            Nezumi shoved his feet in his boots. “I think you’re being dramatic. I’m the one who was in love, remember? He’ll be fine.”        

            “You don’t know anything, Nezumi!” Safu shouted.

            “Stop yelling.”

            “You can’t go looking for him. Nezumi, please wait,” Safu insisted, trailing Nezumi as he walked back to the front door.

            He pulled on it, and it was locked, so he flicked the lock and was about to pull it open when Safu’s hand was on his wrist.

            “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, and Nezumi stared at her.

            “Don’t give yourself so much credit.”

            “Are you going to look for him?”

            “I did come back for a reason, you know, and it wasn’t to be shouted at by you about how I’m supposed to be dead,” Nezumi said dryly, and Safu let go of his wrist.

            “Do you remember when you got the chicken pox in middle school? And you’d never gotten the vaccine for it, so it was really bad, and Shion hadn’t missed a day of school in his life, but he took off just to be with you and make sure you didn’t itch the pox?” Safu asked, and immediately, as Nezumi remembered, he felt nauseous and feverish all at once.

            “Why are you talking about that?” Nezumi asked, leaning against the door to brace himself and wrapping his arms around his stomach.

            “Or when you both did the school play in high school, and you would help Shion with his lines because he was terrible? He wasn’t actually terrible. He couldn’t be, he got the second lead after you, but he pretended to be so you’d teach him because he knew you loved to act and more than that you loved to know something Shion didn’t for once, and he told me how you got so different when you acted, and he told me how you were so incredible, it’s all he would talk about for weeks, how he thought you should be an actor but he knew you’d laugh at the idea if he told you.”

            Nezumi hadn’t known this. He remembered the school play – _Aladdin,_ where he was Aladdin and Shion was the genie. He remembered running lines with Shion constantly for the months of rehearsals.

            “Your nose is bleeding,” Safu whispered, and Nezumi lifted his hand to his nose, pulled his fingers away to see they were red, but he wasn’t too concerned with that as he was using most of his energy not to buckle to the floor at the throbbing pain blooming in his head.

            “And do you remember – ”

            “Safu, stop,” Nezumi breathed, understanding now what she was doing – she was stopping him from looking for Shion, she was stopping him from being able to do anything, and she always had been cunning, but Nezumi had to give it to her, the girl was craftier than he’d expected.

            “ – Shion’s fifteenth birthday? He told me weeks before what he was going to ask you for. And the next day, he told me that when you kissed him, he almost worried he’d never be able to stop. He told me he was scared that he’d ruined your friendship but scared that it was worth it just to feel you touching him like that. He told me he wanted to kiss you again, he couldn’t stop thinking about it, he thought about asking to kiss you every second and thought maybe on his next birthday he’d ask for more, and on his next birthday he’d ask for more, and on his next – Nezumi!”

            Nezumi’s legs had buckled. His head felt like it was splitting open. He ground his teeth together so hard he worried he’d break his jaw. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe.

            “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Safu said, and he hardly heard her over the ringing in his ears.

            He knew he was going to pass out again, but he didn’t want to, he was tired of passing out, he knew it was in his head and he just need to get over it – he wasn’t in love, that was just the past, it was just nostalgia, it was just memories, but it wasn’t now.

            “Blood is coming out of your ears,” Safu said quietly.

            Nezumi thought he felt her touch by his ears but he couldn’t be sure. He realized his eyes were closed. He was lying on the floor.

            He thought about Shion kissing him because he couldn’t help it, and then he lost consciousness completely at the new wave of pain towing him over.

*


	3. Chapter 3

_five years ago_

Nezumi pulled Shion closer to him so their chests touched. He dipped his head against the side of Shion’s, his nose skating Shion’s cheek as he leaned closer to whisper into Shion’s ear.

            “Your hand is sweating.”

            “Who taught you to dance?” Shion asked back, his voice a breath on Nezumi’s skin.

            They were in Shion’s room. Shion had put on music, but Nezumi wasn’t listening to it. He couldn’t hear anything but his pulse, and stepped in circles to that, deep and steady in the bases of his ears.

            Nezumi knew he shouldn’t have been holding Shion so close. He knew he should lean back from him and not tilt his head until the side of his forehead touched the side of Shion’s. He could feel Shion’s inhale, the deepness of it, as Shion’s chest rose against his. He knew he shouldn’t let his fingers curl around the fabric of Shion’s t-shirt over his lower back.

            “Nobody,” Nezumi said, and his lips were so close to the skin of Shion’s cheek that the word hardly had room to fall.

            Nezumi didn’t know how to dance. He lied when Shion asked him. He lied so he could teach Shion, whose sudden curiosity in dancing hadn’t been given with his request, and Nezumi hadn’t asked for an explanation. He lied just to hold him like this, too close, and Nezumi knew it was too close, but he couldn’t move away.

            Shion didn’t move away either. They continued in slow circles, and when Nezumi stepped on Shion’s foot, Shion said nothing, and they didn’t stop.

            Nezumi thought about kissing him. Not even on his lips, but just the corner of them, just his skin.

            He’d let Shion decide to turn his head the last inch. He’d let Shion be the one to kiss him properly, kiss him open-mouthed, kiss him deeply, kiss him entirely.

            He’d let Shion undress him, first his shirt and then his jeans and then his boxers and he’d forget Nezumi’s socks but that wouldn’t matter. He’d let Shion undress himself, and he’d watch from where he’d be lying on his back on Shion’s bed, and he’d let Shion crawl over him, and he’d let Shion do whatever Shion wanted with him.

            “Nezumi.”

            Nezumi leaned back only enough to look at Shion. Shion’s eyes, a brown that Nezumi loved, that he associated with comfort and home and ease, flicked between Nezumi’s own.

            “What?” Nezumi asked, when Shion didn’t say anything.

            “You stopped,” Shion said, and Nezumi looked away from Shion’s roaming eyes to his lips.

            He dropped Shion’s hand and loosened his fingers from Shion’s t-shirt and retracted his hand from around Shion’s waist and stepped back so Shion’s hand fell from his shoulder.

            “You got it, Your Majesty. You don’t need my help.”

            Shion just looked at him. He always said what he was thinking, but sometimes, when he just looked at Nezumi, Nezumi wondered if the boy wasn’t so easy to read after all.

            If there were miles of him Nezumi did not know. Acres of mystery in him. Leagues of secrets he didn’t share with Nezumi.

            If he had words, like Nezumi did, that he couldn’t say, that stuck in his throat, that made it hard to breathe.

            Usually, Nezumi did not notice the way he felt for Shion. Usually, it was nothing, it was just there like sunlight or specks of flour in Nezumi’s hair or Shion himself – a constant presence, not something to think about, not something to notice.

            But now, the way Nezumi felt was like a tangible thing between them, and Nezumi took another step back to give it more space, then another.

            “I’ve got a meeting with my social worker,” Nezumi lied.

            Shion nodded. “Okay.”

            “See you tomorrow,” Nezumi said, because on the nights he didn’t sleep at the bakery in the guest room, he woke up early at the orphanage to meet Shion at the bakery door so they could walk to school together.

            Shion nodded again, and Nezumi was at the door when Shion’s voice turned him around – “Nezumi.”

            Nezumi looked over his shoulder.

            “Thanks for the dance,” Shion said, and Nezumi wanted more words than this, wanted everything Shion was thinking, wanted everything Shion wasn’t thinking.

            “First lesson’s free,” Nezumi said, catching Shion’s smile before he turned and left the room.

            He descended the bakery steps and breathed deep and held his inhale to keep the smell of cherry pie that wafted out from the kitchen in his lungs as long as he could.

 

_present_

Nezumi woke to a palmful of two white pills.

            “Take these.”

            It was Safu’s voice, and Nezumi opened his eyes blearily to find himself again in the bed in the guest room with Safu sitting beside him.

            “Are these to kill me since your first attempt didn’t work?” Nezumi asked, and his voice came out sounding like someone else’s voice entirely.

            Safu offered a cup of water beside the pills. “I wasn’t trying to kill you. These are for the pain.”

            Nezumi wished he wasn’t awake. His insides felt pummeled and shaky. Nothing in him felt solid. His head swam and the dizziness was nauseating, or maybe it was the nausea that was dizzying.

            “What pain?” Nezumi asked, at the same time rolling onto his side and curling into a ball, trying to contain the pain, squeeze it into something more concise that he could handle.

            “You should really take them. They’re drugs from my practice. I work at a psychiatry clinic, and usually we just write scripts, but we do have some meds on hand. I figured you could use something stronger than Advil. These are made specifically for people in love with amoritis hosts.”

            Nezumi didn’t move.

            “There was a girl who was in love with an amoritis host in Jaipur who died in three days. Did you see the story on the news? I think it was two years ago. It’s not always months, Nezumi, and for you, we both know you’ll be lucky to make it a week. You don’t have time to stay here and be in denial. You have to leave, you have to do whatever you did last time to stay alive.”

            What Nezumi did last time was push Shion out of his mind. Was block him, block every memory. Refuse to think about him until he forgot it was an impulse. Separate himself from any real human contact to make sure nothing would remind him of Shion.

            He’d isolated himself and focused only on survival, and it was four years he could not repeat.

            “If you stay here, I’ll make sure you don’t leave this room, and Karan will make sure Shion never sees you. You’ll die here, and that’ll be it. We won’t tell Shion. There won’t be a point to it, Nezumi, there isn’t a point to this, can’t you see that? All this is going to do is hurt Karan because she actually knows you’re alive, and you’re making her lose you all over again. Is that what you want? Karan is your family, and this is what you’ll do to her?”

            Nezumi liked when Safu talked. He liked to hear her voice. He’d missed it. He’d missed being spoken to. When he was gone, he’d found odd jobs, worked mostly manual labor in factories and warehouses. He hadn’t talked to anyone and he hadn’t wanted to.

            He listened to Safu’s sigh. “Please take the pills. If you’re going to be stubborn and make yourself die here, there’s no reason to be in so much pain while you do so.”

            Nezumi opened his eyes. Looked at the pills that were now on the mattress in front of his face. He untucked his arm from where it’d been folded against his chest and took the pills, slipped them in his lips.

            “Do you want water?”

            Nezumi’s mouth was dry. He couldn’t swallow the pills, but he didn’t want to move to drink the water.

            “Come, I’ll help you sit up,” Safu said, and then her hands were on his shoulders, and she was pulling him up, and he felt heavy and leaden and dizzy and terrible.

            Safu held the glass to Nezumi’s lips, and he drank half of it before he felt too nauseous to drink more, and dropped back down to the mattress.

            “You really look awful,” Safu mused, and her fingers were gentle when they combed through his hair.

            “Can I see Karan?” Nezumi asked. He’d closed his eyes again.

            Safu’s fingers paused in his hair. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Her physiognomy is very similar to Shion’s.”

            “I already saw her.”

            “Yes, and it was painful, wasn’t it?”

            “It’s painful either way,” Nezumi sighed, hardly able to speak at all, ready to sleep again. “And now we have pills.”

            “The pills don’t eradicate the pain, they dull it. And they’re traditionally prescribed for early stages of the dying process, while you’re clearly in a very late stage.”

            Nezumi had always valued Safu for her blunt honesty, but now, he thought, he could really have done with a few lies.

 

_three years ago_

There was a small television in the corner of the boxing warehouse that was usually on a sports channel, but that day it was on the news.

            Nezumi didn’t pay it much attention as he fed the boxes he’d deconstructed into the conveyer belt until he heard the name.

            _“Shion, the first of what’s been called the new wave of amoritis hosts, is scheduled to present as the keynote speaker at the annual Amoritis Donation Event this fall. He has been – ”_

            Nezumi heard nothing else after he looked up at the screen and saw Shion’s face filling it. He buckled over, vomiting onto the conveyor belt and then the floor and his own boots. He was on his knees in seconds and dug his fingers into the concrete floor.

            He hadn’t thought about Shion in nearly a year, and if he had it had been under his control, by his own rules – he knew to think of Shion only in a detached way, contained, fleeting.

            When he thought of Shion, it was usually with brown eyes and brown hair – the Shion Nezumi knew. But the Shion on the television screen had white hair and red eyes and a strange scar, and somehow that felt more familiar, somehow that hurt more, Nezumi wanted to scream but couldn’t because the vomit was quicker to his lips than his own voice.

            He couldn’t stop retching. He thought his lungs would come out, his pancreas and his liver, his appendix and his stomach, his gallbladder and his kidneys. Everything would leave him, and his heart would be last, and it would stick in his throat so he’d choke, so he could not breathe – he could not breathe, he could not breathe, he needed to stop vomiting. His entire body convulsed, and he’d feared death but never pain and now that felt a foolish thing, now he wanted death over this, would take anything over this, would erase all memories of Shion to end this, would go back in time and take everything away if it took away this.

            He’d return to eight years old when his arm had been sliced in an alleyway by a man with a knife and leering eyes, he’d return to the storm where he’d escaped the alleyway and ran to the place that looked the warmest, that looked the safest – _Karan’s Bakery,_ but he hadn’t known that then, hadn’t stopped to read the sign, had run through the doors and into a boy who was switching the Open sign to Closed and even so had not turned Nezumi away.

            Nezumi would have gladly chosen to bleed out in the storm alone without ever meeting this boy if it meant he could stop vomiting, he could stop breaking, he could stop feeling as if he were dying and even so surviving long enough to feel it over and over again.

 

_fifteen years ago_

“Mom convinced the principal to let you into all of my classes, so I can help you with anything if you want, and you can help me too,” Shion said.

            Nezumi glanced at him and eyed his smile warily. They were walking to Shion’s school where Karan had somehow enrolled him despite Nezumi’s lack of papers and prior institutionalized schooling.

            “I thought kids hated school,” Nezumi said, after a moment.

            He was still hesitant about engaging with this Shion in conversation. He’d realized that Shion had a knack for talking incessantly, and it was often wisest to ignore him completely or else risk an hour-long spiel on some completely uninteresting topic.

            “I don’t hate school. Safu doesn’t hate school. I doubt you’ll hate it. You like to read, which is another type of school. It’s learning.”

            “Safu will be there?”

            Safu was Shion’s friend who sometimes came over to the bakery, and sometimes Shion would go to her house. Nezumi was always invited, and always declined.

            Safu wasn’t his friend, after all. And neither was Shion. They only hung out because they lived in the same house, but that wouldn’t be permanent. Nezumi knew he didn’t belong there.

            “Yeah, she’s in our class too. It’s going to be so much fun, trust me,” Shion said, and Nezumi squinted at his profile as Shion looked both ways before they crossed the street.

            _Trust me._ As if they knew each other. As if Nezumi had any reason to trust Shion, this strange boy who’d saved his life a year before, offered him a home and warmth and medicine and food without a second thought.

            Shion was an idiot. His mother was too. They trusted everything and everyone, but Nezumi knew better than that.

            Niceness and hospitality and charity meant nothing. Humans were inherently selfish, and that made them dangerous, and Shion was no different than despite how friendly and innocent he seemed.

            If Nezumi let his guard down, even stupid Shion had the potential to hurt him, and Nezumi would never take that chance.

 

_ten years ago_

“You have to trust me.”

            “I don’t,” Nezumi replied easily, watching the other pairs in front of him fall onto each other without hesitation.

            “Come on, I’ll catch you!” Shion insisted, from behind Nezumi.

            Nezumi pulled on the collar of his gym uniform t-shirt. “I think my shirt shrank in the wash.”

            “How about I go first?” Shion suggested, and Nezumi turned around to face him, held out his arms like the catchers had been instructed to do.

            “Go ahead,” he said, and Shion turned around so his back was to Nezumi.

            “Ready?” Shion asked.

            “Always, Your Majesty.”

            Nezumi planned on stepping back as Shion let himself fall backward, just to show him that the entire concept of the “trust fall” was completely idiotic, the sort of thing only gym teachers could think up, the same way they thought up these ridiculously annoying gym uniforms.

            Nezumi planned on introducing Shion to the real world – of which the kid was painfully oblivious – and letting Shion fall because that was reality. He’d be better off expecting to be let down if he trusted anyone but himself. He’d be better off understanding he’d get hurt if he let his guard down.

            But then Shion was counting down quietly, and then he was tilting back, and Nezumi couldn’t step away.

            He stepped forward. Caught Shion, felt the weight of Shion against his chest and wrapped his arms around his friend instinctively.

            Shion laughed in his arms, and Nezumi let him go quickly.

            “I was sure you’d let me fall,” Shion said, still laughing when he turned around.

            Nezumi squinted at him. “Then why did you do it?”

            Shion shrugged. “I guess I must have trusted you without consciously realizing it.”

            Nezumi was still examining Shion, a clone of any other student in his school uniform – dark green t-shirts and grey shorts – and trying to figure out what was so different about him, when Shion reached out and grabbed Nezumi’s arm, pivoting him.

            “Your turn now,” he said, positioning Nezumi so that his back was to Shion again.

            Nezumi sighed. “Do I have to?”

            “Yes. I think this exercise was invented specifically for you. It’ll do you good to trust someone.”

            Nezumi exhaled hard and pulled on the collar of his shirt a last time. “Fine. You win.”

            “Ready? On my count. Three, two, one…fall!”

            Nezumi tipped backward, forcing himself not to take a step back to steady himself as gravity pulled him, and just as he was about to step back anyway, his back collided against Shion’s chest, and he was caught, Shion’s arms linking under his and hoisting him back up.

            “See? Not so bad,” Shion said, while Nezumi stood up on his own and disentangled from Shion.

            “This is a simulation, Shion. Not even that. It’s an exercise in a middle school gym, it’s not real life.”

            Shion looked at Nezumi fully, and even when the teacher blew his whistle to collect them back, Shion didn’t look away from Nezumi. “You can always trust me to catch you, Nezumi,” he said, too seriously for a sixth-grade gym class, too seriously for a twelve-year-old.

            Nezumi glanced away from him, at where the rest of the class was crowded around the teacher, no doubt getting instructions for the next useless exercise.

            He looked back at Shion, who still stared at him, and nodded. “Okay,” he agreed, letting himself believe it only because Shion looked so certain. “I’ll trust you.”

 

_five years ago_

Nezumi assumed it was because he fell asleep on Shion’s shoulder during the assembly, but it might have been something else.

            Maybe it was that he waited at Shion’s locker every day to walk home with him.

            Maybe it was that he ran his hand through Shion’s hair in the hallways too frequently.

            Maybe it was that he carried Shion’s books for Shion while Shion rummaged through his backpack for a stick of gum.

            Maybe it was that he had no other friends than Shion and didn’t care for more.

            Maybe it was that time in gym class when they were playing football and after Nezumi tackled Shion, he lingered too long over Shion’s body in the schoolyard grass.

            Maybe it was that he had long hair, and that made him seem feminine, and that made people think he was gay, and maybe he was.

            Nezumi didn’t know why the words appeared on Shion’s locker, but the reason didn’t really matter.

            He saw Shion first, touching his locker from down the hall, and then Nezumi was beside him, realized that Shion wasn’t touching his locker, he was tracing the words on his locker, written in some sort of white ink, maybe it was white-out, maybe it was paint.

            _Nezumi is a fag._

            It couldn’t be a coincidence that the words were written on Shion’s locker instead of Nezumi’s.

            “Normally people decorate their lockers with pictures,” Nezumi said, after he read the words and decided he didn’t care about them, they didn’t matter, they were just words and everyone else in this school was an idiot anyway, someone else would be the _fag_ tomorrow on someone else’s locker.

            Shion didn’t look at him.

            “This is nice too, though. It’s very eye-catching. People can rip off pictures, but this is more permanent, a smart choice,” Nezumi continued, brushing it off, wanting Shion to brush it off with him – this didn’t matter, who cared? Nezumi didn’t.

            Did Shion?

            Shion was the one who asked Nezumi to kiss him when they were fifteen. Shion was the one who slipped into Nezumi’s bed every night he had a nightmare. Shion was the one who asked Nezumi to teach him to dance two months ago. Shion was the one who let Nezumi sleep on his shoulder during the school assembly. Shion wasn’t allowed to care, and Shion wouldn’t care, he wasn’t an idiot like the rest of the kids in this school, he wasn’t anything like them, he wasn’t anything like anyone Nezumi had ever known.

            “Your Majesty. You plan on mobilizing any time soon? I’d like to get to lunch at some point.”

            Shion left his fingers on the _f_ of _fag_ when he finally turned away from the letters, when he looked at Nezumi, who made himself smirk.

            “Don’t tell me this bothers you. If anyone has a reason to be bothered, I believe that would be me.”

            “Are you?” Shion asked, after a moment, and his voice was very quiet, and there was nothing readable in his face even though he was the most readable person Nezumi knew.

            But maybe he wasn’t. Maybe Nezumi knew nothing about him. Maybe there was so much more, and Nezumi wanted to know it, wanted all of it, needed Shion to give him everything.

            “Am I what?”

            “Are you bothered by this?” Shion asked, and his fingers dropped from the words.

            “No.”

            Shion’s gaze slipped back and forth between Nezumi’s eyes, like Nezumi was the one being read, and Nezumi wondered if Shion could see all of him, could read all of him, the parts that he hid and the parts that he offered. “It doesn’t make you mad?”

            “Why should it?” Nezumi asked, his words more clipped than he’d intended.

            Shion looked back at his locker. Back at the words. “It’s defacement of property. It’s using sexuality as an insult. It’s intended to hurt you and to hurt me.”

            “I don’t care about school property, I find the word _fag_ very childish, and anyone who takes it seriously is an idiot, and it doesn’t hurt me. I should hope it doesn’t hurt you, I didn’t think you were that susceptible to such an immature and unoriginal show of teenage taunting.”

            “It’s okay to have feelings, Nezumi.”

            “I do have feelings,” Nezumi snapped, and Shion glanced at him.

            “It does hurt me. I hate that someone is trying to insult you.”

            “I’m not insulted.”

            “I’m not saying you should be, I’m saying someone wants you to be, and that makes me angry!” Shion shouted, and Nezumi raised his eyebrows.

            “Why are you getting so worked up?”

            “Because there’s a slur on my locker and it’s in reference to you, and I care about you even if you won’t!” Shion said, continuing to yell, and Nezumi held up his hands.

            “Your Majesty. Calm down – ”

            “Don’t you tell me to calm down – ”

            “Why are you letting this get to you? Look, they want you to get riled up, whoever did this, that’s what they want. Do you want to give them what they want?”

            “I don’t care about whoever did this! I care about you!”

            “See, shouting things like that in the hallway is not doing anything to prevent more shit from being written on your locker,” Nezumi pointed out, while Shion glared at him.

            “Forget it,” Shion muttered, twisting the lock on his locker and opening it so hard the door slammed against the locker beside it.

            “I think you’re misdirecting your anger here. This is not my fault,” Nezumi pointed out, while Shion threw his books into his locker and slammed the door closed.

            _Nezumi is a fag._ The handwriting was neater than Nezumi would have expected. The words were large. They hadn’t been there in the morning, but looked dry already.

            “Let’s go,” Shion said, his voice hard, walking away from his locker, and Nezumi followed him, lengthening his stride to keep up with Shion’s fast pace.

            “What? You’re mad at me because I’m not reacting the way you want me to? If I threw a tantrum or started crying, would that make you happy?”

            “No, it wouldn’t,” Shion replied shortly.

            “Then what would?”

            “Aren’t you my best friend?” Shion demanded, stopping walking abruptly, so Nezumi stopped too. They were in the middle of the hallway, and people had to walk around them to get by.

            Nezumi blinked. “Is that relevant?”

            “Tell me what you’re feeling! You still don’t trust me, I know you don’t, you won’t even be honest with me about how you feel about this. I hate that you do this. You close up completely, you act like I’m anyone else, like you’ve got to keep up this calm and collected façade around me – ”

            “Has it occurred to you that it’s not a façade? I truly do not give a shit about some graffiti on your locker. It was clearly written by an ignorant asshole, and I’ve got better things to do than be concerned with the thoughts of someone like that. I care about what you think, not some ignoramus who goes around defacing school property with white-out. Quit being pissed at me for not reacting the way you want me to.”

            Shion stared at him, and then his eyes were shining, and Nezumi immediately felt his anger dissipate.

            “Are you crying?”

            “No,” Shion said, turning away and walking again, and Nezumi followed him, pulled him out of the way instinctively as he was about to walk into a cluster of girls.

            “Watch where you’re going,” he said, glancing at Shion to watch him rub at his eyes.

            “You’re right.”

            “Be specific, I’m right about a lot of things.”

            “I was taking my anger out at you. I’m angry. I hate that it gets to me when I know you’re right, the person who did that is ignorant and it’s not worth it to be mad at them, but I’m mad anyway.”

            Nezumi was still holding Shion’s arm from when he’d pulled him away from the girls. He let go, slipped his hands into his pockets. “That’s okay,” he finally said, softening his tone.

            He listened to Shion sniff beside him and realized they were not in fact headed to the cafeteria.

            “We’re going the wrong way,” he noted.

            “No, we’re not.”

            “Yes, we are. This is to the entrance.”

            “It’s to the principal’s office. I’m telling them about my locker.”

            Nezumi stopped walking, and Shion glanced back at him.

            “I have to report it. They need to get a janitor to paint over it.”

            Nezumi took a step back from him, and Shion nodded.

            “It’s okay. You go to lunch, Safu will be wondering where we are anyway. I’ll meet you there.”

            Nezumi looked at Shion for a moment, then nodded once, turned and walked away from him. He glanced back after a few steps just in time to see Shion disappear around a corner.

            On the way to the cafeteria, Nezumi had to pass Shion’s locker again. The halls were empty by now as the bell had already rung, and everyone was either in class or at lunch.

            Nezumi stopped in front of Shion’s locker. Reached out and touched the words.

            _Nezumi is a fag._

            Nezumi didn’t care about the words. But he cared that they were on Shion’s locker, and he cared that they made Shion mad, and he cared that they made Shion cry.

            And Nezumi cared that someone could take the way he felt and turn it into something ugly, something insulting, something wrong when it wasn’t. It was good and it was better than anything Nezumi had felt in his life, and these words acknowledged none of that, took away all of that, made Nezumi ashamed of what he usually suspected was the best part of himself.

 

_nine years ago_

On Shion and Nezumi’s shared thirteenth birthday, they made chocolate chip cookies.

            It was the first time Karan left them alone with the oven unsupervised, and in fact she allowed them to make the cookies completely on their own.

            This proved to be a bad decision. Halfway into the recipe, Nezumi reached out to brush flour off Shion’s cheek, forgetting he had batter on his fingers and smearing it over Shion’s face in the process.

            “Hey!” Shion said, reaching up to wipe his face and rubbing the back of his hand over Nezumi’s cheek in turn.

            “It was an accident!” Nezumi argued, reaching into the bowl of batter and grabbing a handful to smear on Shion’s shirt.

            “No, it wasn’t!” Shion shouted back, grabbing his own fistful of batter, and quickly, a food fight erupted, Nezumi and Shion running to opposite sides of the counter and flinging handfuls of batter at each other, shouting and laughing.

            It lasted roughly three minutes before Karan came into the kitchen, demanding to know what was going on.

            “He started it!” Nezumi shouted, at the same time Shion yelled the same accusation.

            Karan shook her head. “Don’t make me punish the two of you on your birthdays. I’m going to leave and come back in fifteen minutes. When I do, this kitchen better be completely spotless. Understood?”

            “Yes, Mom,” Shion said.

            “Fine,” Nezumi agreed, and Karan left.

            The moment she was gone, a glob of batter smacked Nezumi in the face, and Nezumi turned to see Shion laughing on the floor.

            “That’s it!” Nezumi yelled, grabbing the bowl of what batter was left from the counter and walking over to Shion, straddling his rolling body and holding Shion’s shoulder down while he smeared batter through Shion’s hair.

            Shion shrieked at him. “Get off!”

            “This is what you get for messing with me.”

            Shion fought him for several seconds, then suddenly went limp, and Nezumi froze with his hand still in Shion’s hair, glancing down to see that Shion was just looking at him.

            “Did I hurt you?” Nezumi asked, confused.

            “No. I just gave up. You win,” Shion said.

            Nezumi blinked at him. “You give up?”

            “Yeah. You can keep going, though.”

            Nezumi contemplated him, then continued to rub batter into his hair, trying to coat every strand before he decided he was finished and got off of Shion, holding out his batter-smeared hand to help Shion up.

            Shion led them upstairs to the bathroom so he could see what he looked like, and in front of the mirror, he started laughing, touching his batter-coated hair.

            “I look good, don’t you think?” he asked Nezumi, smiling wider than Nezumi had ever seen anyone smile.

            “Sure, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said, rolling his eyes and watching Shion look back in the mirror, touch clumps of his hair.

            “Mom’s going to kill us.”

            “At least you’ll look good when you die,” Nezumi said, just to make Shion laugh again, just to see if he could make him smile even wider – was it possible?

            “I guess we should clean up,” Shion said, dropping his hand from his hair and looking away from the mirror again.

            “Guess so,” Nezumi said, and he followed Shion out the bathroom and back to the kitchen, where the mess looked even worse than Nezumi remembered.

            They set to cleaning, and after fifteen minutes, the kitchen was spotless. The only thing remaining to be cleaned was themselves.

            Karan arrived as she said she would to inspect her kitchen.

            “Looks good, boys,” she said, rubbing her hands through their hair and laughing when batter lingered on her palms. “How about I make a new batch while you two take showers?” she said, and Shion ran out the kitchen.

            “Me first!”

            “I want to go first!” Nezumi shouted, running behind him.

            “Don’t run on the stairs!” Karan called.

            Shion made it to the bathroom first and locked the door so Nezumi couldn’t get in. Nezumi stood outside, not wanting to sit down and get batter on the carpet while he waited.

            He licked batter off his fingers while he listened to the shower run. At the orphanage when it was someone’s birthday, the social workers made cupcakes and forced everyone to gather and sing and wear stupid hats, but Nezumi had told them he didn’t need to celebrate his birthday there.

            He had a family of his own, and he’d be celebrating his birthday with them, just as he had every year before, just as he planned to do every year of his life to come.

*


	4. Chapter 4

_present_

Nezumi ate soup and crackers with Karan, and it was Karan who held his hair out of his face when he threw them back up.

            “How long will you stay here and do this to yourself?” Karan asked.

            “Let me see him,” Nezumi said into the trash can he’d stuck his head into.

            “Safu doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”

            “And what do you think?”

            Karan’s fingers were cool on Nezumi’s forehead, weaving back through his bangs, wiping off the sweat that dotted his hairline. “I think I love you too much to watch you die,” she whispered, and she leaned her forehead against Nezumi’s shoulder, Nezumi could feel it, feel her shake against him.

            He didn’t take his head out of the trash can. He breathed in the smell of his own vomit because it was a relief from the smell of the woman beside him, of the smell of flour and dough, of sweet fruit and chocolate, of everything in his past that had made him start vomiting in the first place.

 

_twelve years ago_

Nezumi had his report card in his backpack. He had to get it signed by his legal guardian, and that meant his social worker, but he hated his social worker and he didn’t want to ask her.

            He walked into the bakery after Shion, who was chattering about something they’d learned in science.

            “Hi, boys, how was school?” Karan asked, as they walked up to her at the counter where she’d just finished ringing up a customer.

            “It was great! In science we learned about – ”

            “Can you sign this?” Nezumi asked, producing his report card from his backpack and slapping it on the counter beside the register.

            Karan glanced at it before she picked it up, pulling the report out of its orange envelope.

            “You only need to get it signed if you got an F,” Shion said.

            “Shut up,” Nezumi snapped, and Shion frowned at him, so Nezumi looked away from him at Karan.

            “Why did you get an F in math? I thought we talked about letting Shion help you if you needed it,” Karan said.

            “I don’t need his help.”

            “You got an F in math?” Shion asked, reaching up and grabbing the report card from Karan.

            “Shion, give that back to me right now,” Karan said, holding out her hand.

            “Who cares about math?” Nezumi muttered. “Can you just sign it?”

            “You have no reason to be ashamed that you’re not at the level of the other students. They’ve been in this school system for longer than you, they have an advantage, it says nothing about your own intelligence, Nezumi,” Karan said.

            “Can you sign it?” Nezumi asked, not looking at her.

            She took the card back from Shion and looked at it again. “It says you need to get it signed by your legal guardian. The school has it on their files that your legal guardian is your social worker, honey, I’m sorry, I can’t sign it.”

            “What does it matter?” Nezumi asked.

            “Honey – ”

            “I knew it was crap when you said you think of me as your son! I knew it was all crap, you’re a fucking liar!” Nezumi shouted, using a word he’d never used before, but he liked the sound of it, he liked that it would hurt.

            “Nezumi! You do not speak to me that way,” Karan said, her voice hard.

            “Why not? You’re not my mother. You’re not anyone to me,” Nezumi yelled back, grabbing his report card from her hands and running back out the bakery.

            “Nezumi!”

            Nezumi was outside when his arm was grabbed, and it was Karan, and her hand was tight on his arm so that it hurt.

            “You’re hurting me! Let go!” Nezumi’s eyes burned. His fingers dug into his report card and ripped it.

            “Nezumi, please listen to me – ”

            “Let go! Let go!” Nezumi shouted, freeing his arm from Karan’s grip and hitting her stomach. “Stay away from me! I’ll never be your son, I have my own mother, and she’s dead, and she was better than you’ll ever be,” he snapped, and then he turned and walked away and waited to be followed, but he wasn’t.

            He never got the report card signed. He threw it in the trash at the orphanage and when he was given another to get signed the next day, he threw that one out too and hoped they’d kick him out of school, hoped they’d realize he wasn’t good enough and he didn’t belong there, he didn’t belong anywhere.

 

_fourteen years ago_

“Does it hurt, hon? Is it too tight?”

            Nezumi shook his head, watching the woman wind the bandage around his arm, then take one of her hands away to reach for a fastening clip from her first aid kit. She fastened it on the bandage, then slipped her hands down Nezumi’s arms, held his hands loosely in hers until he took his hands away.

            She didn’t seem to mind. “Are you hungry, or would you like to shower first?”

            “I have to go,” Nezumi said.

            She shook her head. “Of course not. You’re staying here for the night. Do you like pie? We have cherry and apple and peach and chocolate.”

            Nezumi scrutinized the woman. He didn’t want her pie. He didn’t want anything from her. He didn’t know her, and he didn’t trust strangers.

            “I don’t want pie.”

            “That’s fine. We have food too. Rice and some beef stew? It’s good, I promise. Come, you go on to shower, Shion will show you where it is and give you a towel and some dry clothes, and I’ll fix up a plate for you.”

            “I have to leave,” Nezumi insisted, and the woman looked at him fully in a way Nezumi couldn’t remember being looked at by anyone but his own mother.

            “If you have to leave, of course you can go whenever you want. But I would love if you stayed for a little longer, just until the storm passes, just so I’d feel better. How does that sound?”

            Nezumi inspected her, then found himself nodding without knowing why. “I guess.”

            “And you’re sure you don’t remember your mother’s number? Or your father’s? Just so I can call to let them know you’re all right?” the woman asked, standing up and putting away the stuff she’d used to clean his wound.

            “They’re dead,” Nezumi said, without meaning to, and he regretted it the moment he spoke.

            The woman looked at him quickly, then nodded slowly. “Okay, honey. Don’t worry. Go on and Shion will show you the shower.”

            Nezumi had expected her to say _I’m sorry._ Those were the words everyone said. Those were the words the doctors had said when he woke up in the hospital and the words the lawyers had said and the words the social workers had said before Nezumi ran from them all.

            _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._ As if they had anything to do with it. As if they really felt anything for Nezumi when he was a stranger to them, and he knew they weren’t really sorry, they were just saying it.

            But the woman – Karan, she’d said her name was Karan – didn’t say _I’m sorry,_ and Nezumi felt a strange sort of relief at this.

            “Hon, do you think you can tell me your name now?” Karan asked, as the boy who’d lingered by the door the entire time stepped forward and offered to show Nezumi the bathroom.

            Nezumi shook his head. He liked this Karan well enough, but not enough to trust her.

            “That’s okay,” she said, and she smiled at him, a warm smile that made Nezumi’s eyes burn, so he turned away from her and followed the boy up the stairs.

            “The bathroom’s this way. The water gets hot really quickly, so be careful. I’ll get you a towel, you can have the blue one, that’s the softest one. Do you like the color blue? What’s your favorite color? Mine’s green. Does your arm hurt? You should probably keep it out of the shower spray so the bandage doesn’t get wet,” the boy rambled, and Nezumi watched him with some fascination, forgetting for a moment that his arm even hurt, that he was cold from the storm, that he was in a stranger’s house.

            He forgot, for a moment, that he was alone, and it was something he hadn’t forgotten since his family died in the fire months before, it was something he hadn’t thought he’d be able to forget for as long as he survived them.

 

_six years ago_

Nezumi reached into the oven without oven mitts, distracted because Shion had been asked out by some girl at school with a note slid into his locker slats, and Nezumi couldn’t tell what Shion thought about this and hadn’t wanted to ask, and Shion hadn’t offered up his thoughts on his own after he’d read the note and handed it to Nezumi to read.

            _What do you think?_

            _Shouldn’t I be asking you that, Your Majesty?_

            _She’s pretty._

_Then go out with her._

            “Fuck!” Nezumi shouted, dropping the pan of cookies so that they clattered on the floor despite trying to get them to the counter before he let go. He shook out his hands, his eyes immediately prickling along with his skin.

            “Come,” Karan said. She’d been mixing batter for a cake at the counter but was immediately by Nezumi’s side, taking his arm and leading him to the sink, turning on the faucet and holding Nezumi’s fingers below it.

            “I’m fine,” Nezumi muttered, but he wasn’t, his fingers seared and the skin of them was red and it hurt, but more than that it reminded him of a pain he didn’t want to be reminded of.

            “These are deep,” Karan said quietly, her fingers jostling Nezumi’s own.

            “I didn’t want to drop the pan,” Nezumi confessed.

            “I don’t care about the cookies, Nezumi. I care about you.”

            “I’m fine,” Nezumi said again, but his voice cracked, and it wasn’t the pain from the pan and it wasn’t his fingers, it was the rest of it, it was everything, the pain of his childhood and this woman beside him telling him she cared when it wasn’t supposed to be her, he’d had a mother before her, he’d had a life before this, and he no longer thought about it, no longer cared about it, no longer wanted it back, and something had to be wrong in that, something had to be messed up in his relief that he’d met Shion and Karan when he’d only met them because he’d lost everyone else.

            “Honey – ”

            “I’m fine,” Nezumi snapped, freeing his hands from hers, but she caught him back, pulled him to look at her, held his wrists.

            He ducked her head so she wouldn’t see the wet of his eyes.

            “Nezumi, look at me.”

            “Karan, I’m _fine_ – ”

            “You have to stop this. You have to stop pulling away.”

            “I’m not,” Nezumi insisted, even as he tried to free himself, but Karan’s hands were strong and her grip was tight, and she wasn’t hurting him but she could have, so easily, she could have left and he’d be broken in an instant.

            “Let me take care of you. How long have we been doing this? How long have you been fighting me?”

            Nezumi shook his head. “I’m not fighting you, Karan – ”

            “I will never stop trying to take care of you no matter how much you insist you can take care of yourself. Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t realize how strong you are? But this is something I need to do. If you don’t want to be my son, you don’t have to be, Nezumi. But I have to be your mother. Do you understand?”

            Nezumi didn’t understand. He didn’t understand this woman and how she could make him feel hollow and full all at once. He didn’t understand how she could take him in and never give him up. He didn’t understand how she could care about him and love him when she wasn’t supposed to, he’d never asked for that, he’d never expected that.

            Karan let go of his wrists, and Nezumi wiped at his face where his tears had loosened. He dragged his hands roughly over his eyes and sniffed and refused to look at her still.

            “Can I put cream on your burns, or will you try to stop me?” Karan asked gently, and Nezumi took a deep breath, let it out in a slow stream through his lips.

            “Okay,” he whispered.

            “Come on then,” she said, stopping to close and turn off the oven before stepping over the cookies, and Nezumi stepped over them too, following Karan upstairs to her room where he sat on the edge of her bed and let her put cream over his fingers.

            He thought about the burn on his back and the scar there and knew immediately he wouldn’t have any scars on his fingers, that there would be no evidence of this, that one day he’d forget it.

            “Does it hurt badly?” Karan asked softly.

            Nezumi shook his head. “No.”

            “You don’t have to lie to me. You can tell me if it hurts.”

            Nezumi swallowed. “It hurts,” he admitted, and when he spoke the words he realized the truth of them.

            It had nothing to do with his burns. More than he ever thought he’d be able to stand, it hurt to be loved.

 

_five years ago_

“Guess what, Mom?”

            Shion nudged Nezumi with his elbow so that the corn on his fork fell off halfway to his mouth.

            “What the fuck?” Nezumi snapped.

            “Language, Nezumi.”

            “Sorry, Karan,” Nezumi muttered, glaring at Shion, who waggled his eyebrows back at him.

            “What were you saying, Shion?” Karan asked, while Nezumi drank out of Shion’s cup of water, as he’d already finished his.

            “Nezumi got asked out on a date,” Shion said, and Nezumi put down the cup and glanced at him.

            “Shion’s exaggerating, as usual.”

            “Are you denying that someone asked you out?” Shion asked.

            “How do you even know about this? Have you got me wired or something?”

            Shion smiled. “Safu told me.”

            “That girl,” Nezumi muttered. He’d made her promise not to tell Shion, but typical of her, to break her promises when it came to Shion.

            “Have you ever seen Nezumi embarrassed?” Shion asked.

            “I haven’t,” Karan replied.

            “I’m not embarrassed. And I wasn’t asked out.”

            “Yes, you were.”

            “No, I wasn’t.”

            “Yes, you were.”

            “Boys – ”

            “Some girl asked me if I was dating you, I don’t see how that’s the same as being asked out,” Nezumi snapped, and Shion blinked.

            “Safu didn’t say that. She said a girl asked if you were free this weekend to go to the movies.”

            Nezumi stabbed his mashed potatoes, not knowing why he’d told Shion anything at all. “Yeah, that’s what happened,” he told his potatoes.

            “She asked you if me and you were dating?” Shion asked, like it was a ridiculous thing to ask.

            Which it was. Nezumi set down his fork before he stabbed it through his plate.

            He looked at Shion solidly. “Yeah. And then she asked if I was free this weekend to go to the movies. Now you have all the information. Next time, maybe you really should just wire me, it’d be easier.”

            “What did you say?” Shion asked, leaning forward.

            “Ask Safu.”

            “I wonder why Safu didn’t tell me the girl asked if we were dating,” Shion mused.

            Nezumi glanced at Karan, who was watching him carefully, and he quickly looked back at his plate. “I think I’m done,” he said.

            “You barely touched your vegetables,” Karan said.

            “Shion can eat them,” Nezumi said, standing up and lifting his plate, overturning it on Shion’s.

            “Hey!” Shion protested.

            “Nezumi,” Karan said, but Nezumi didn’t care to listen, dropped his plate in the sink and didn’t wash it as he normally did.

            Instead, he headed out of the kitchen, grabbed his jacket from the front and was putting on his boots when Karan appeared beside him.

            “Where are you going?”

            “The orphanage. Home,” Nezumi amended, because that was his home, not here.

            “You didn’t wash your plate.”

            “I’m sure you can give me a pass this one time,” Nezumi muttered.

            He froze, realized what he’d said, waited for Karan to chastise him on the proper way to speak to her, but she didn’t.

            Instead, she looked at him carefully, then leaned against the doorway of the coat closet. “If you don’t want Shion to know this is bothering you, storming out in the middle of dinner isn’t the best way of hiding it.”

            Nezumi stared at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            “It’s not my business, but – ”

            “You’re right, it’s not your business,” Nezumi confirmed, slipping past her and heading to the entrance of the bakery, where Shion was already standing.

            Karan had been following Nezumi, but stopped.

            “Move,” Nezumi said, because Shion was standing in front of the door.

            “I thought you were spending the night.”

            “You thought wrong.”

            Shion’s arms were crossed over his chest. “Is the idea of us dating that repulsive to you that you’re actually going to storm out in a tantrum over it?” he asked, and Nezumi stepped back from him.

            Nezumi was almost amazed. For someone as smart as Shion was, he could so incredibly clueless it fascinated Nezumi.

            “Look, I’m sorry if it upset you, but – ”

            “I’m not upset,” Nezumi interrupted.

            Shion uncrossed his arms. “You’re clearly upset.”

            “Maybe, Shion, you don’t know everything. Consider that for once.”

            “And maybe you don’t know anything!” Shion shouted, throwing his hands up.

            “Why are you upset now?” Nezumi demanded, while Shion stepped away from the door.

            “Just go. You want to go? Go. Do you even know how difficult you can be, Nezumi? You say I’m annoying, but you don’t even know what it’s like to have to deal with you.”

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “That’s very nice of you to say. Goodnight.” He slammed out the door, was halfway down the block when he heard his name being called.

            He didn’t want to stop, but he did. Turned and watched Karan walk towards him.

            “Karan, I really don’t want to – ”

            When Karan was in front of him, she lifted her hands to cup Nezumi’s jaw, tilted his head down, pressed her lips gently to his cheek. She let go of him and stepped back while Nezumi swallowed.

            “You never leave the bakery without saying goodbye to me.”

            Nezumi nodded. “I know.”

            “Have a good night, Nezumi. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            Nezumi nodded again. “Goodnight, Karan.”

            He watched her walk away from him for several seconds before turning, walking back to the orphanage, wishing he was spending the night at the bakery but knowing he could do so the next night, and the night after that, and whenever he wanted because that was his home, and inside it were the people he belonged to.

 

_present_

Nezumi stood at the doorway of Shion’s room. He couldn’t go into it. Even to look at it hurt, but everything hurt since he’d come back to the bakery, so he didn’t move away.

            “Nezumi?”

            Nezumi didn’t turn at the call of his name. He saw in his peripherals when Karan was standing beside him.

            “He hasn’t been in here since he left for college, you know. When he’d come back, he’d sleep in your room. Or the guest room, as you liked to call it, even though it never was since the first night you slept there.”

            Nezumi closed his eyes. He’d taken four of Safu’s magic pills without her knowing. The pain was no longer crippling in that he could stand and walk short distances, but he still felt the urge to strip his own skin off his body to stop the burning.

            “I wondered. Every mother wonders if her child will develop amoritis, what that would mean. For most mothers, I know there must be sadness, a sorrow that her child will not be able to be loved, will have to stay away from such a beautiful emotion or else risk hurting someone. But for me, there was also fear. I knew the moment I saw Shion on his birthday what that would mean for you.”

            Nezumi leaned his forehead against the side of Shion’s doorframe. He chanced opening his eyes again, looking around at Shion’s bedroom, thinking this was a good test, a good precursor to when he would see Shion again.

            He decided, before seeing Shion, he would take more pills. Maybe eight, or ten. Maybe twenty might prevent him from blacking out from the pain of seeing Shion again.

            “It wasn’t only Shion I was scared for. It was you too. I’d have these strange daydreams of you waking up with white hair and red eyes, and I didn’t even know what day to dread. I’d be kept awake, knowing what would happen to Shion if you were the one to have it.”

            Nezumi felt his eyebrows crease as he kept looking into Shion’s room, turning Karan’s words over in his head. “Nothing would have happened to Shion,” he said, after a minute.

            “Oh, Nezumi,” Karan said softly, but she didn’t say anything else, and Nezumi finally looked at her.

            “You think Shion would have died if I had amoritis?” he asked, confused, and Karan just looked at him.

            Nezumi shook his head.

            “Every day was a relief to see you with your hair the same dark color, your beautiful eyes unchanged,” Karan said quietly.

            “It wasn’t like that for him. It never was.”

            “How do you know that?” Karan asked gently.

            Nezumi looked back into Shion’s room. “He would have said so. You know him, he says everything.”

            “Nobody says everything,” Karan said, like it was a fact, like there was no arguing with it – the same way Shion spoke, as if everything he said was indisputable, as if Nezumi had to believe it until Nezumi couldn’t help himself, until Nezumi believed everything.

            Nezumi pressed the side of his head harder against the doorframe. It was hard and solid and hurt, but everything hurt.

            “Do you really think it’s a good idea to see him?” Karan asked, and Nezumi tried not to gasp too audibly at the wave of pain that wracked through him.

            He gripped the doorframe and hoped she didn’t notice.

            “Yes,” he breathed, and he waited for her to argue, but she didn’t.

            Nezumi’s hope nearly killed him, but he was used to fighting death by then.

*


	5. Chapter 5

_seven years ago_

Shion unbuckled his seatbelt and slid across the seat, then climbed on top of Nezumi’s lap.

            “Hey, what – What do you think you’re doing?” Nezumi demanded, while Shion arranged himself so that he was on his knees facing Nezumi with his legs folded on either side of Nezumi’s thighs.

            “Hey, there,” Shion slurred.

            “Shion? Nezumi, what’s going on?” Karan asked from the driver’s seat.

            “Shion, get back in your seat and put on your seatbelt,” Safu chastised, turning around in the passenger seat and pulling on Shion’s arm.

            Shion’s fingers were fumbling in Nezumi’s hair. Nezumi examined Shion’s swollen cheeks for a moment before he lifted a hand to extract Shion’s from his hair.

            “Come on, Your Majesty. Enough of that. Time to go back to your seat, this one’s taken.”

            “Nezumi,” Shion said, his words clumsy around the cotton stuffed in his cheeks to stop the bleeding.

            “Shion,” Safu insisted.

            “You have a funny name. Nezumi. That’s funny,” Shion said, and then he started laughing while Nezumi stared at him.

            Nezumi knew Shion’s escape from his seat and the nonsense he was rambling now was an effect of the drugs the oral surgeon had given Shion for his wisdom teeth extraction, but it was easy to forget Shion was out of it with the intensity of his stare, the full way he looked at Nezumi so that Nezumi forgot Shion was supposed to be anywhere other than his lap.

            “I don’t like that you’re not in your seat and without a seatbelt, honey. Go back to your seat,” Karan said from the front, reminding Nezumi that Shion was not supposed to be sitting on top of him.

            Shion’s fingers were back in Nezumi’s hair, both of his hands now, slipping down the strands and holding bunches of them loosely in his palms.

            “What are you doing here?” Nezumi asked gently. “You should go back to your seat.”

            “I like it here,” Shion replied.

            “Is he still not in his seat?” Karan asked, and Nezumi didn’t look away from Shion, but he could tell Karan had looked back because suddenly the car jerked, and Shion nearly slipped backward off Nezumi’s lap.

            Nezumi reached out, by instinct only, and wrapped his arms around Shion’s waist, held him close and steadied him.

            Shion’s hands had tightened around Nezumi’s hair and he’d pulled it when the car jerked, but Nezumi didn’t mind the sharp tug, the brief pain of it, nothing that would last, not like the heat of Shion’s body.

            “I got you,” Nezumi told him.

            “Shion, hon – ” Karan started, but Safu interrupted her.

            “Nezumi’s got him. He’s safe, and we’re almost at the bakery anyway,” she said, and Karan didn’t say anything else.

            The rest of the car ride was smooth. The car stopped faster than Nezumi expected, and he looked away from Shion to glance out the window, saw that they were at the bakery already, too soon.

            He didn’t take his hands from around Shion’s waist. He kept them there, thinking it still wasn’t safe, Shion needn’t go anywhere, and Shion didn’t try to.

            “We’re here,” Nezumi told him, in case he hadn’t realized, and Shion tilted his head. His hands were no longer curled around Nezumi’s hair, but flattened over Nezumi’s chest, not moving, just resting.

            “I’ve always been here,” Shion said, and the words didn’t make sense, but Nezumi understood anyway.

            He nodded. “I know, Your Majesty.”

            When Shion smiled, his mouth was full of cotton, and there was blood from his gums on his teeth, and there was no reason for the sight of it to make Nezumi’s heart race underneath the flat of Shion’s palms.

            What a lie. There was every reason in the world.

 

_six years ago_

On their sixteenth birthdays, Shion did not ask Nezumi to kiss him as he had the year before.

            Instead, Shion asked Nezumi to walk the wrong way.

            “Why?” Nezumi asked.

            “Do you have to ask so many questions?” Shion asked, his fingers hooked over his backpack straps, squeezing and unsqueezing in pulses.

            “Karan will be waiting for us,” Nezumi pointed out.

            “She won’t. I already told her we wouldn’t be home right after school.”

            “Where is it you plan to take me?” Nezumi asked, and Shion just smiled lightly, tilted his head.

            “Follow me and find out yourself,” he said, and then he was walking away from the schoolyard gates – the wrong way, not the way to the bakery, not the way they walked home every day after school.

            Shion didn’t turn around to see if Nezumi was following, and Nezumi could easily not have followed, but he did – of course he did. He quickly caught up to Shion, and they walked beside each other while Nezumi guessed where they were going.

            “Stop guessing,” Shion said, after Nezumi’s fourth guess – the bookstore.

            “Does that mean it’s the bookstore? Because you know how I feel about bookstores,” Nezumi warned.

            “Yes, I know, books shouldn’t be part of capitalistic gain, they belong in libraries, I know,” Shion said, glancing sideways at Nezumi, who stared back.

            “So it’s not a bookstore.”

            “No.”

            “Where is it?”

            “Here,” Shion said, pulling Nezumi by the elbow, and Nezumi followed him across the street to the train station.

            “The train station.”

            “It’s not the final destination. It’s a means to get there,” Shion said, leading Nezumi past the ticket counter and to the terminals.

            “We need tickets.”

            “We have tickets.”

            “For where?” Nezumi asked.

            Shion just peeked at him, then looked forward again, kept walking.

            Nezumi watched Shion’s profile as he walked beside him. Shion did not seem excited. His excitement was exuberant, obvious in his incessant chatter and the spread of his too-wide grins.

            Now, his smiles were small and not as frequent as Nezumi would have guessed for a journey to a birthday surprise.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said, when Shion stopped at a platform and shrugged one strap of his backpack off.

            Nezumi watched him rifle through his backpack for a minute before he repeated himself –

            “Shion.”

            “Hold on,” Shion said, then unearthed two tickets. He handed one to Nezumi, who skimmed it and immediately understood.

            “No.”

            “Nezumi – ”

            “It’s my birthday present, right? So I get a say in this. The answer is no, we’re not going here, I don’t want this – ”

            “It’s not for you. It’s for me,” Shion interrupted, and Nezumi froze.

            He watched a crease deepen between Shion’s eyebrows. He watched Shion look away from him, at the tracks where the train would be pulling in soon – five minutes, according to the ticket Nezumi glanced at again.

            “This has nothing to do with you,” Nezumi said quietly, looking up from the ticket to examine Shion’s profile.

            Shion glanced at him. “It has everything to do with me.”       

            “Of course it doesn’t.”

            Shion exhaled deeply. “Do you not understand, Nezumi?” he asked, and his voice was not quite pained, but nearly. “Don’t you get it? You’re the most important person in the world to me. I don’t want to force you to show me this. I want you to want me to go here with you, to go back with you.”

            “And I don’t get a say?”

            “Yes, you get a say.”

            “I say no. Let’s go,” Nezumi said, and he turned around, started walking away from the empty tracks that would soon be filled with a train going to a place where Nezumi had no desire to go.

            Nezumi was aware that Shion had not followed him. He walked nearly to the end of the platform, then glanced back, saw Shion watching him.

            “Get moving, Your Majesty,” Nezumi called.

            “I have to meet them, Nezumi. You’ve been my best friend for eight years. It’s time I met them,” Shion said back, and his voice was quiet but Nezumi heard it from across the platform, and then he heard nothing but the sound of the train approaching, loud and barreling and screeching when it stopped on the tracks spread across the platform.

            The other people on the platform moved towards the train, and Nezumi watched them board, looked back at Shion to see that he was still standing where he had been, still looking at Nezumi as he had been.

            It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a decision.

            Nezumi walked forward quickly, returned to Shion’s side, slung his arm over Shion’s shoulders and led him to the train. They were the last to board before the doors closed, and then it was rumbling under their feet, the wheels of it clacking against the rails below them as Nezumi lifted his arm from Shion’s shoulders and Shion peered down the carriage.

            “No empty seats,” he said, just as the train swayed, and he reached out, grabbed onto a strap of Nezumi’s backpack.

            Nezumi reached up to hold the rail along the ceiling of the train. Shion didn’t let go of Nezumi’s backpack strap to hold the rail instead, and Nezumi didn’t want him to.

            The train ride would not be long, though Nezumi wasn’t sure the duration. He’d never made the ride before. He’d never been back to the place where they were going since he’d left it nine years before – a year before he met Shion, a year before he found another family to replace the one that had been taken from him.

            Nezumi closed his eyes. He felt Shion’s hand over his and realized he was squeezing his ticket hard, but he couldn’t relax his fingers.

            “I’m sorry,” Shion whispered. “It was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

            “It’s fine,” Nezumi said, not opening his eyes.

            “We don’t have to get off the train.”

            Nezumi didn’t say anything. After another few minutes, the ticket collector came through their carriage, and Nezumi had to open his eyes, had to unclench his hand, had to hand over his crumbled ticket, which the collector smoothed before ripping along its serrated edge, handing half back to Nezumi, who pocketed it.

            Sometime later, the train stopped. Shion let go of Nezumi’s backpack strap and Nezumi let go of the ceiling rail. He got off the train even though Shion had said he didn’t have to, and Shion got off alongside him, led him out of the station.

            The sun was bright and in Nezumi’s eyes outside the station. He cupped his hand over his forehead and looked around and waited to remember, but he didn’t.

            “I don’t know where we are,” he confessed.

            “This way,” Shion said, looking at his phone and pointing down a street, so Nezumi followed him, unsure what address Shion had input into his GPS app, unsure where Shion was leading them.

            As they walked, Nezumi was wary of looking around, wary of remembering, and chose instead to watch Shion, his brown hair flicking in the breeze and catching sunlight that made it almost golden. He therefore did not notice when they reached their destination until Shion announced it.

            “Here,” Shion said, and Nezumi looked away from Shion’s hair to see a black iron gate stretched out in front of him.

            Behind the gate were gravestones.

            Shion stepped forward, and Nezumi stepped back. Shion’s hand was on the door of the gate when he looked over his shoulder.

            Nezumi shook his head. “This is stupid,” he said, the words coming out without him realizing it.

            Shion’s hand dropped from the gate. “Okay. We don’t have to – ”

            “What’s the point? What was the point of this? You want to meet my parents? You want to meet my sister? They’re not here, Shion, those are fucking corpses, disfigured and disintegrated and buried in the fucking ground. It’s not them, so I really don’t see the point of this,” Nezumi snapped.

            Shion’s lips were open. His eyes were wide. His hair was filled with streaks of sunlight that almost made the brown of it golden – but not quite.

            “Nezumi – ”

            “Don’t. Don’t say some stupid bullshit thing about how it’s okay or some fucking – some useless – I don’t want this. I don’t owe you this. I’m not going to go in there with you and find them and let you cry while you hold my hand and tell me how meaningful this is for you because it’s not, it’s bullshit, I’m done with this.”

            Nezumi turned around and this time he didn’t look back. He had no idea how to get to the train station because he hadn’t been paying attention on the way to the cemetery, but he’d gotten out of this place without a map or anyone but himself before, and he could do it again.

            He kept walking, thinking at some point, something had to seem familiar, and then something did, a street he knew, and he walked along it, expecting the towering train station to come into view but instead what came into view was a little neighborhood.

            Nezumi slowed on the sidewalk. Looked at each house as he passed it. He couldn’t remember his house number. He’d been seven years old when the house had been burned down in the fire, and today he was sixteen.

            He stopped. Realized. It had burned down in the fire. It wouldn’t be here, and Nezumi wouldn’t recognize it. It would have been rebuilt. Something new in its place and everything gone that was there before, not that the house mattered, not that it was the house Nezumi had nightmares of losing.

            Nezumi looked at the house in front of him. It wasn’t familiar. It was a stranger’s house, and he crouched on the sidewalk in front of it and breathed hard.

            He was sixteen now, but he felt like a child. Lost and alone the way he had been for a full year after his family died until a storm and leering eyes in an alleyway had him running into a bakery, into a boy who’d said simply, as if he’d been expecting Nezumi –

            _You can stay here._

            After a minute, Nezumi lowered from his crouch so that he was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the sidewalk. When someone sat beside him, Nezumi didn’t look away from the stranger’s house.

            “Is this it?” Shion asked softly.

            “I don’t know,” Nezumi said.

            Shion didn’t say anything else. He didn’t apologize, and Nezumi was incredibly grateful for this. Shion was silent as he rarely ever was, and after a while, he leaned his cheek against Nezumi’s shoulder.

            Nezumi didn’t move away.

 

_five years ago_

Nezumi stole a baby carrot from Safu’s Ziploc bag, and she nudged the rest of the bag towards him.

            “I don’t know why I keep bringing these, I hate carrots,” she said, while Nezumi pushed the bag back towards her.

            “I don’t want them.”

            “You’re eating one right now.”

            “I don’t want more.”

            “You’re going to university, right?” Shion asked, and Nezumi looked away from the Ziploc bag to glance at him.

            “Why do you ask it like that?” Nezumi asked, folding the brown paper bag where he brought his lunch so he could put it in his backpack and reuse it the rest of the week.

            “Like what?” Shion asked.

            “I think Nezumi’s referring to the ‘right’ at the end of your question, which implies he is expected to answer affirmatively,” Safu pointed out.

            Nezumi leaned back in his chair. He, Safu, and Shion had their own table in the cafeteria in the back corner. It was the only hear of high school thus far that they’d all shared a lunch period.

            “You’ve never brought up an alternative,” Shion said, putting down the crust of his peanut butter sandwich.

            “I didn’t know discussing my options with you was a mandate for not going to university.”

            “Does that mean you’re not going?”

            “I haven’t thought about it,” Nezumi lied.

            He wasn’t going. He didn’t have the funds to get him into university or the grades for a scholarship – unlike Shion and Safu, who had both.

            “Is it money?” Shion asked.

            “Is what money? I told you I haven’t thought about it.”

            “You could get an acting scholarship,” Shion said, like such a statement wasn’t bizarre.

            “Since when did I act?” Nezumi asked.

            “Last year’s production of _Aladdin_ ,” Shion said.

            Nezumi glanced at Safu. “Are you hearing this?”

            “I’m not a part of this conversation,” Safu replied easily, grabbing a baby carrot from her bag and taking a bite.

            “Why not? You don’t think Nezumi should go to university?” Shion asked.

            “I don’t think it’s up to me,” Safu replied slowly, after she chewed.

            “I know there are other options, obviously, but if you don’t want to go to university, which I still don’t think you should be ruling out so easily – ”

            “Did I say I ruled it out, or did I say I haven’t been thinking about it?” Nezumi asked shortly.

            Shion frowned. “You still have to think about your future. After next year we’re graduating. What will you do in the city if you’re not in school? How will you pay to live there?”

            Nezumi squinted. “What city?”

            “Nezumi, please don’t be difficult. I’ve told you many times what universities I’m going to apply to, and you know they’re mostly in Tokyo.”

            “That’s you, Your Majesty. What have I got to do with it?”

            At this, Shion’s exasperation dropped to confusion. “What do you mean?”

            Nezumi took another of Safu’s baby carrots and pointed it at Shion. “Who told you I was going to follow you around the world?”

            “It’s not around the world. It’s a two-hour train-ride.”

            “What am I going to do in Tokyo?”

            “Should we be having this discussion now? Lunch is over in five minutes,” Safu said, but Nezumi didn’t look at her, and neither did Shion.

            “That’s what I’m asking you. That’s what you need to start thinking about. What you’ll do in the city if you’re not going to go to university.”

            “Again, I’ll ask, who says I’m going to Tokyo?”

            “But I’ll be in Tokyo,” Shion said, looking lost, confused, his comprehension clearly absent and a crease deepening between his eyebrows.

            “Are we conjoined twins now?” Nezumi asked, before taking a bite of his carrot.

            Shion blinked at him. “You don’t want to come to Tokyo with me?”

            The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch and the three-minute warning for their next classes, but neither Shion nor Nezumi moved.

             “That’s the bell,” Safu piped up.

            “Why should I go wherever you’re going?” Nezumi asked back.

            “I’m not saying I expect you to just blindly follow me wherever I go – ”

            “Then what are you saying?”

            “Why didn’t you tell me this before? I’ve been telling you my list of universities for months now. I thought – I thought – ” Shion looked helpless.

            “What did you think, Your Majesty?” Nezumi asked quietly, and Shion just continued to look at him in his lost way.

            “Guys,” Safu said, and Nezumi stood up, pocketed his folded paper bag and watched as Shion got up too. Together, they walked out the cafeteria – Shion in unnatural silence – before Safu went down a hall to her world history class and Nezumi continued with Shion, as he always did, to drop him at his English class before going to his own trigonometry class.

            At Shion’s class door, Nezumi was about to turn when Shion spoke again.

            “I thought we wanted the same thing,” he said, and it took Nezumi a moment to remember what he’d asked Shion last in the cafeteria.

            Nezumi looked at him. He didn’t know what Shion wanted, so how could he know if they wanted the same thing?

            But he couldn’t ask because then Shion was turning, walking through his classroom door, and Nezumi didn’t follow him.

            He went to his own class, nearly at the opposite end of the school so that Nezumi always walked in after the bell, but he didn’t care at all about being late.

            What he cared about was sitting in a classroom at the opposite end of the school.

 

_four years ago_

Shion would be turning eighteen in three days, and Nezumi assumed it was his incessant, unnecessary, and frankly ridiculous worry about amoritis that had seeped into his unconscious.

            At least, Nezumi assumed the shouts coming from across the hall belonged to Shion in the fits of a nightmare. Nezumi wasn’t sure, as usually he wasn’t the one being woken in the middle of the night by shouts; typically, he was the one doing the waking.

            Nezumi laid for a moment in the silence that stretched out, thought maybe the nightmare was over, but then there was another shout, and Nezumi sat up, pushed his blanket off his legs and rubbed his knuckles against his eyes as he stumbled out of the guest room. He trailed his hand along the wall of the hallway to navigate the dark since his eyes had not yet adjusted, then slipped in Shion’s room, the door of which was wide open.

            Nezumi closed the door behind him, not thinking about it, and faced Shion’s bed, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

            Nezumi had never slept in Shion’s bed before. It was bigger than the guest room bed. Shion’s blankets were kicked to the foot of it. He slept on his side, curled loosely in the middle of the bed, so Nezumi sat on the edge of it, watched Shion shift and murmur and make a broken-sounding shout that wasn’t any particular word at all.

            Nezumi didn’t know how to comfort anyone in a nightmare. He wasn’t the comforter, he was the comforted, and he thought about what Shion did – simply laid in bed beside him – so Nezumi did the same, not able to choose a side since Shion was completely in the middle.

            He stretched out on the edge of the bed, watched Shion’s fingers tighten around the bedsheet, watched Shion’s lips move soundlessly, and then with voice slipping through them, a small and timid sort of voice that had Nezumi reaching out, running his hand through Shion’s hair.

            “Shh, it’s just a nightmare, Your Majesty,” he whispered, and immediately, Shion’s eyes opened.

            Nezumi retracted his hand, surprised at the abruptness of Shion’s waking.

            “You’re alive,” Shion said, and tears slipped from the corners of his eyes onto his cheeks.

            “What?” Nezumi asked, still startled that Shion was awake, and now he was crying, and now he was asking if Nezumi was alive – why wouldn’t he be? What kind of dreams did Shion have anyway?

            Shion inhaled in a deep, quick, audible way, in a way that shuddered as it came back out his lips, and Nezumi didn’t think, scooched closer to him, wrapped his arms around Shion and pulled Shion into his body.

            Shion was warm and shook against Nezumi’s chest. Nezumi felt Shion’s hands wrap around the fabric of his shirt above his stomach. Felt Shion tuck his forehead against Nezumi’s heart.

            “It’s okay,” Nezumi said, thinking it’d be too easy to press his lips to the crown of Shion’s head, but he didn’t. Instead, he allowed himself to lift his hand from Shion’s back and weave his fingers into Shion’s hair, the strands soft, familiar. He breathed Shion in, the same shampoo he’d always had, smelling of nothing in particular but clean.

            Shion murmured something into his chest that Nezumi couldn’t hear, and Nezumi preferred it this way.

            This way, Shion might have said anything. This way, Nezumi could pick any words he wanted to sneak through the fabric of his shirt and stick permanently on his skin.

            “Don’t worry. It was just a nightmare, it wasn’t real,” Nezumi insisted, and he felt Shion slowly relax in his arms until they were just lying together, and Nezumi figured he didn’t have any excuse to hold Shion any longer, but he didn’t let him go.

            He pretended he’d fallen asleep like this. He pretended it was only because he was unconscious that he couldn’t move away.

 

_present_

Safu did not approve and was not hesitant to say so.

            “I don’t approve, but if you have to see him, it should be at Shion’s apartment, not here. Your senses are already overloaded with memories the bakery as a setting holds for you in and of itself. At least Shion’s apartment won’t have those memories to add to the damage seeing him on his own is going to do to you.”

            Nezumi hadn’t argued. He didn’t care where he saw Shion, and that was why he was currently in Shion’s apartment, a few blocks from the bakery, let in with Safu’s copy of the key.

            “He doesn’t know you’re alive, and I’m going to meet him outside the apartment and let him know before he sees you.”   

            Nezumi blinked. “You didn’t tell him?” He was sitting on the edge of Shion’s sofa trying not to look around too much. He’d taken a handful of Safu’s pills – two that she’d given him, and a number he hadn’t counted that he’d stolen when Safu had been distracted by her own insistence of disapproval until Karan had argued it was not up to her.

            Karan sat on the other edge of Shion’s sofa, and Nezumi didn’t look at her, worried she would see something in his face to make her doubt her decision to let him see her son.

            “No, he doesn’t know,” Safu said, pausing in her pacing to look at Nezumi.

            “He doesn’t know I’ve been here the last…” Nezumi trailed off. He didn’t know how long he’d been back at the bakery. It felt like forever.

            “Four days,” Karan said quietly.

            “No, he doesn’t know,” Safu said, her voice shorter now.

            Nezumi stared. “How could you not have told him?” he demanded.

            “Because you weren’t supposed to see him again, remember? I still think it’s better if you don’t, it’s better if he keeps thinking you’re dead, you’re just going to die anyway the moment you see him – ”

            “Safu,” Karan said, and Safu immediately stopped.

            “Sorry, Karan,” she said quietly, but then she perked up again. “Oh!”

            Nezumi was still somewhat pissed that Shion didn’t even know he was alive when he’d been back for four days, but he was less angry than he’d expected, felt placated by a weight in him that he couldn’t name, something cotton-y that was clouding quickly in his head. He couldn’t argue with Safu any longer anyway, as she was running out of the room through a doorway to what he supposed was Shion’s bedroom.

            Nezumi glanced at Karan after Safu disappeared. “I’m not going to die,” he said, to reassure her, and he worried it would be a lie, that the last thing he said to Karan would be a lie. He tried to think of some truth to give her, but couldn’t think of anything.

            Safu was back before Karan could respond, or maybe she hadn’t intended to reply anyway, maybe she knew Nezumi was lying and didn’t want to justify it with a response.

            “Here,” Safu said, crouching in front of Nezumi and holding some green fabric.

            “What is that?”

            “It’s his pillowcase. I’m going to tie it around your eyes like a blindfold.”

            “Why would you do that?”

            “Because I don’t want you to die the second you see him, so let’s give you some time to get accustomed to his voice and his immediate presence around you. We can gauge what affect him being in the same room as you will have on your health and then decide accordingly.”

            “Decide accordingly,” Nezumi repeated dryly. The odd cotton-feeling was spreading from his head downward. It was heavy in his limbs.

            “I don’t approve of this, Nezumi. If I think anything irreversible is happening to you, I’m going to drag him out of here.”

            “Nothing’s going to happen,” Nezumi said. He didn’t even feel pain now, only the strange weight, the unexpected cotton, and he realized this was the pills – he didn’t know how many he’d taken, but he understood that now they were kicking in, settling in him.

            “You are being incredibly stupid,” Safu snapped.

            “Safu, if you can’t be here, you can leave,” Karan said gently, and Safu swiftly looked at her, then shook her head curtly. 

            “I’d like to stay, if that’s all right with you.”

            Nezumi would have liked to see Shion alone, but he knew Karan wasn’t going to leave, and he doubted, despite Safu’s _if that’s all right with you_ , that she would leave on his wish either.

            “It’s fine,” he said, and she lifted the pillowcase.

            “Hold your bangs up,” she said, so Nezumi held up his bangs, not arguing even though he wanted to _see_ Shion – wasn’t that the point?

            She tied the pillowcase tightly. The fabric was soft and cool over Nezumi’s closed eyelids. He watched the darkness and waited for Safu to repeat her disapproval.

            “How much pain are you in on a scale of one to ten?” she asked.

             “One.” He didn’t know if this was a lie or not. He wasn’t sure he could feel anything. He tried to remember how many pills he’d stolen, how many he’d poured onto his palm, slipped in his lips one by one.

            “If you’re going to lie, try to do so more believably, I know you’re capable of it,” Safu snapped.

            “Safu,” Karan started, but she didn’t say anything else.

            The room was quiet, and Nezumi wondered if he’d fallen asleep, realized what an odd thing that was to be uncertain about but didn’t have to think about it for long because then Safu was speaking again.

             “Shion just texted. I told him to let me know when he was leaving the high school. He should be here in a few minutes, I’m going to go downstairs to meet him and explain.”

            Nezumi pushed at the blindfold, though his arm was heavier than normal to lift. “Do I have to wear this stupid thing?”

            “Keep it on, or I won’t let him come up,” Safu said sharply, and Karan didn’t argue, so Nezumi dropped his hands and sighed.

            His heart was slow and leaden in his chest. His limbs seemed too solid. He felt as if he might fall asleep by accident, and the dark of the blindfold wasn’t helping.

            A handful of Safu’s pills was not the recommended dose, but a handful had enabled him to walk against Karan’s side from the bakery to Shion’s apartment, and a handful allowed him to sit on Shion’s couch and feel fatigue rather than pain, and a handful allowed him to keep the soup Karan had fed him for breakfast down as he waited for Shion to walk into the room.

            “How many pills did you really take?” Karan asked gently, after a minute passed – Nezumi knew because he was counting in his head.

            “Two,” Nezumi lied – another lie, he forgot he’d been looking for a truth to tell her.

            “Nezumi,” Karan said, but she didn’t say anything else, so Nezumi kept counting in his head.

            He lost count several times. It was hard to keep count. He felt almost drunk, his head swimming and thick. He again considered the fact that he should have counted the pills in his palm before he’d swallowed them.

            After some time Nezumi couldn’t keep track of because he couldn’t count, there was the sound of shouting, and in this shouting there was the sound of Shion’s voice, and Nezumi felt an immediate wrongness – not pain, but a wrongness he couldn’t name, a wrongness that was clouded by the tiredness, a wrongness too easy to ignore, so he ignored it.

            He wanted to grip the cushion of the sofa by his thighs, wanted to steady himself, but his fingers were loose, he couldn’t grip anything.

            “You’re not in pain?” Karan asked.

            “I – ”

            “How many pills did you take, Nezumi?” she asked again, her voice sharper now.

            “I’m fine,” Nezumi insisted, because he didn’t know the number, he’d taken as much as he could while Safu was distracted and that was all he knew. He wanted to take off his pillowcase blindfold, and more than that he wanted to sleep, and then there was a sharp sound at the door, and then Nezumi heard the door opening, and his heart, despite its heaviness, struck the cage of his ribs it was trapped in, in an abrupt, panicked jerk of motion.

            There was silence. Nezumi listened to his own breathing and his own heart and his own pulse, deep and slow in his ears. It was too slow, and he knew this, and he didn’t care at all because Shion was in the same room as him.

            There were footsteps, and a voice, and it was Safu –

            “Maybe you shouldn’t go close to him – Shion – ”

            All at once, there were fingers on the underside of Nezumi’s chin, tilting his head up, and Nezumi’s skin didn’t burn as he’d expected – he couldn’t feel anything.

            He realized this only mildly. He was entirely numb, and Nezumi didn’t think the pills were supposed to do that, and he wondered if this meant something else – what did it mean?

            He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything but that Shion’s fingers were on his skin. They were cool, and then they were touching the pillowcase over Nezumi’s eyes.

            “Shion, he needs that, I think it’s best – ”

            The pillowcase loosened and then was pulled away completely. Nezumi kept his eyes closed.

            “You’re dead.”

            It was Shion’s voice, and it was quiet and barely there, and maybe that was why Nezumi didn’t feel any pain, maybe that was why he still felt nothing.

            “You died four years ago,” Shion said. His voice was empty of everything, just like Nezumi felt.

            Hollowed out. Nothing at all but air and a struggling pulse.

            Shion’s fingers were on Nezumi’s cheek. Nezumi assumed these were Shion’s fingers. He didn’t know. He didn’t open his eyes. His eyelids were red now rather than black. His pulse felt slower than before, and then there were fingers on his lips, and Nezumi breathed hard against them, felt his chest shudder with his exhale.

            “You can’t be breathing,” Shion said.

            “Shion.” Someone else said it. Karan or Safu. Nezumi didn’t know. Didn’t care.

            “I killed you,” Shion said, and Nezumi tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were too heavy, and all he could do was breathe, barely that.

            “Nezumi?” Another voice Nezumi couldn’t place. He didn’t know anything but that Shion was in front of him – he knew that, he knew that.

            He had to open his eyes. He tried again but felt as if he were in a nightmare and couldn’t pull himself out of it. He was stuck with a pulse too slow and desperate to wake because he knew Shion would be beside him – Shion was always beside him when he woke from his nightmares.

            “Oh no. The pill bottle is nearly empty.”

            “What pill bottle?” It was Shion. Nezumi could place this voice. Could place it anywhere. Didn’t know anything but he’d known this voice since he ran into a bakery out of a storm and saw the boy turning an Open sign to Closed.

            _You can stay here._

            _I want you to kiss me._

            _Do you like the color blue?_

            _I sleep better when I’m in your bed._

            _Who taught you to dance?_

            _Don’t you get it, Nezumi? You’re the most important person in the world to me._

            _I look good, don’t you think?_

            _Happy birthday, Nezumi._

_Hey, you didn’t say goodbye to me!_

            “I gave him two amoritis pain pills, he must have taken more. Shit, Nezumi.”

            “Is that – There’s blood coming out of his ears. Safu, is this from the pills, or is it the amoritis?”

            “I don’t know, I don’t know!”

            “Nezumi?”

            “Shion, you need to leave now.”

            “He’s been dead for four years. He’s supposed to be dead.”

            “He’ll die if you stay here, do you understand?”

            “Nezumi, just breathe. Can you hear me, honey?”

            “You let me think he was dead.”

            “Shion, please – ”

            “How long have you known he wasn’t dead?”

            “Shion, I didn’t know, I swear, you have to leave – ”

            “Where did he go? For four years, where did – Where did you go, Nezumi? How could you just disappear and let me think – How dare you let me think you were – ”

            “Safu, get him out! Nezumi. Nezumi, honey, squeeze my hand if you can hear me. Nezumi…”

*


	6. Chapter 6

_present_

Nezumi woke facing a night stand, on which there was a glass filled with water.

            He reached out, grabbed it, water sloshing onto the bed as he pushed himself up and chugged the rest of the glass. He placed it on the night stand and rubbed his hand over his face, groaning and pulling his knees to his chest, resting his forehead against them.

            He felt wrung out and exhausted. He tried not to think about anything at all, and succeeded in doing so until the voice.

            “Do you want more water?”

            The pain was not nausea. It was sharp and blunt and slammed through his body as if he’d fallen from miles onto concrete, the breath knocked out of him, his skeleton jarred. He looked up, and there was Shion sitting on the bed beside him, and the pain was dizzying so that Nezumi couldn’t really look at him, had to duck his head back into his knees, had to put all of his effort into the act of breathing.

            “Shit,” he whispered.

            “Should I leave?” Shion asked.

            “Don’t,” Nezumi said, but it was just a breath, and he didn’t know if Shion could hear him, but he couldn’t speak any louder.

            His body was shaking. He squeezed his arms tighter around his legs and tried to stop.

            “I’ll leave,” Shion said, and Nezumi only vaguely felt the mattress moving below him.

            He wanted to protest, he wanted to call Shion back, but he couldn’t because the pain was so much that if he opened his mouth he knew he’s start screaming.

            He clenched his teeth and wished he would just pass out.

_*_

Shion was wearing Nezumi’s hairband around his right wrist.

            Nezumi knew it was his hairband because four years before, after Nezumi had left, the first thing he’d had to buy was a hairband. He couldn’t remember where he’d left his – it was always either in his hair or on his own wrist.

            Shion must have taken it.

            Nezumi looked at his hairband on Shion’s wrist and nothing else. Shion stood by the door, and Nezumi was still in bed. He assumed it was Shion’s bed, and that he was still in Shion’s apartment, as he didn’t recognize the room. He’d passed out some time before and woken again to see Shion in the doorway, and quickly looked away from Shion’s face.

            It felt better that way, though not by much. There had been two pills on the night stand beside the refilled glass of water when Nezumi woke again, and he’d downed them both, wished for more.

            “How could you let me think you were dead?” Shion asked, his voice very quiet.

            Nezumi closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around his waist. He was sitting up. He’d been awake for maybe three minutes – two of which were spent convincing forcing to sit up and drink the pills – one of which was spent looking at his hairband on Shion’s wrist and letting the pulses of pain shudder through him.

            “I thought I killed you. For four years, Nezumi,” Shion said, and his voice was very even and composed, and Nezumi tried to contain his pain, not to show it on his face, the way his head felt like it was splitting open, the way his body wracked with waves of nausea, the way the underside of his skin burned.

            He just had to wait for the pain meds to kick in. There were only two, but they had to help, they had to make it bearable.

            Nezumi hunched over. He sat cross-legged and wanted to fall back onto the bed. He dug his fingers into his sides.

            “Why did you come back?” Shion asked, and Nezumi gasped, could barely breathe from the pain, uncurled one hand from his side to press his palm over his mouth, stop any sound from coming out because he wanted to shout.

            This couldn’t be it. He couldn’t keep passing out every time he saw Shion. He refused to pass out again.

            “How much does it hurt you to be around me?”

            Nezumi lifted his palm from his mouth. He breathed a stream of air out through his lips. He inhaled slowly. He exhaled again. He looked at his own legs, covered by the blanket.

            “It doesn’t hurt at all,” he replied, while his voice cracked and his ears rang and his hands shook and his eyes burned.

            Shion didn’t say anything for a long while, and Nezumi thought maybe he was gone from the doorway, was debating looking up from his legs to check until he heard Shion’s voice.

            “I made them put a gravestone for you beside your families’,” Shion said, and almost instantly, Nezumi blacked out again.

*

When Nezumi woke again, it was to Safu, whose fingers were probing his wrist.

            “Safu,” he said, and she glanced at him.

            “I was checking to see if you were dead.”

            Nezumi ignored this. “Can you help me to the bathroom?” he asked, and Safu nodded, leaned over him and helped him sit up, then nearly lifted him out of bed.

            Nezumi leaned against her, his arm around her shoulders and her arm around his waist, as she walked him to the bathroom.

            “Where is he?” Nezumi asked while he peed, bracing his hand on the wall to stay standing.

            “The bakery.”

            “Can I have more pills?”

            After Nezumi peed, Safu helped him back to Shion’s bed and gave him two pills.

            “Safu,” Nezumi said, just so she would look at him, but she still didn’t, looked instead at the pill bottle she was closing and then the glass of water she handed to Nezumi.

            Nezumi drank it, handed it back, and still she didn’t look at him.

            “I didn’t die the moment I saw him,” Nezumi said, and Safu finally looked at him.

            “Is dying slowly in his bed better?” she asked, and she sounded truly curious, as if she really wasn’t sure.

            “I’m not dying.”

            “Stop saying that!” Safu snapped, then threw the pill bottle at him. “Take the rest, Nezumi, I don’t care. Why are we dragging this out? Why don’t you just die now? What’s the point of any of this? He hates you now, Nezumi, do you realize that? He hates that you’re here, and so do I. You died four years ago, and we moved on, you had no right to come back and do this to us!”

            Nezumi blinked while Safu stood up from the edge of the bed, her hands in her hair, her eyes wet and narrowed as she stared down at him.

            “He was just moving on! He finally spoke your name again for the first time since you left last month, Nezumi! He finally started helping Karan in the bakery again, but he won’t be in the kitchen, he’ll only work the register – Do you know he hasn’t baked in years? Karan was just moving on, she closed the bakery for months, she stopped baking cherry pie completely until last winter because it was your favorite! I was just moving on! I had nightmares for years of you dying while I watched and could do nothing! How could you come back just to die again? How could you do this?”

            When she cried, Nezumi realized he’d never seen Safu cry before. The sight of it terrified him to the point where he forgot about the pain entirely, forgot about everything but the fear of Safu’s sadness.

            He stood up. Walked towards her, and she walked back until her back was against the wall.

            “Don’t come near me, Nezumi, I swear, don’t you dare touch me. I didn’t think it was possible to hate anyone this much. I didn’t think I’d ever wish you were dead, but I do, you should have died four years ago, you should have died when we had a chance to get better from it, how could you – how could you – ”

            She pushed at Nezumi, and she was stronger than he’d expected, but he was stronger than her. Moved her hands away and wrapped his arms around her even while she struggled against him.

            “You broke him the first time, he’ll never be the same, you did this to him, he thought he killed you and nothing would convince him otherwise, and now you’re back and you’ve made me let you see him but I never should have, he’ll never get better and I’ll have lost him and I’ll have lost you and I have no one else,” Safu cried, and her nails dug deep into Nezumi’s back when she stopped pushing him and pulled him instead, her arms around him, pressing her face into his shoulder.

            “I’m so sorry, Safu,” Nezumi managed, and she shook her head against him.

            “I’ll never forgive you,” she whispered.

            Nezumi wanted to remind her that it wasn’t his fault, but it was.

            He had come back, and he had fallen in love in the first place, and he had known on both accounts how terrible of an idea it was, but he’d done so anyway, fully, completely, with no chance of going back.

*

“Does he hate me?”

            Nezumi hadn’t meant to ask. The words slipped out and Nezumi sighed, pressed his face into his hands.

            “Pretend I didn’t say that,” he muttered into his palms.

            “Do you hate him?” Karan asked, and Nezumi took a moment to absorb the words before he dropped his hands, glanced at her.

            They were sitting in Shion’s kitchen. Slowly, Nezumi had been getting to know Shion’s apartment. He’d been there for three days. It was less painful than being at the bakery because Nezumi had no memories of the place, and Shion had very little personal effects. Shion had not been back since he stood at the doorway of his bedroom and told Nezumi about his own gravestone.

            Karan took a sip of her tea. Safu had stopped coming by, and Nezumi wondered when Karan would as well. When there would be no one left.

            “Do I hate him?” Nezumi echoed, still uncertain he’d heard her correctly.

            “Do you see how silly it sounds, to ask a question like that?” Karan asked, smiling lightly.

            “It’s different. I don’t have a reason to hate him.”      

            “Sure you do. He has a disease that’s hurting you.”

            “That’s not his fault,” Nezumi argued. “I left, that was my fault. I came back, that was my fault. Those were my decisions.”

            Karan tilted her head. “Do you want him to hate you, Nezumi?”

            “Of course I don’t,” Nezumi snapped, then regretted snapping, but Karan didn’t say anything about it.

            “Then why are you trying so hard to convince me that he should?”

            Nezumi pushed his palm against his forehead, weaved his fingers through his hair, tightened them in his bangs. “I don’t want him to. Safu said he did,” he admitted, and his voice came out smaller than he’d intended.

            Karan sighed. “Safu is having a hard time with this.” Karan paused for a moment, cupped her hands around her mug, and Nezumi glanced at the soup he was supposed to be eating.

            He’d taken two pain pills that morning. He felt generally nauseous and had begun having frequent nosebleeds, but otherwise, the pain was bearable. At the very least, he hadn’t blacked out since seeing Shion, and he thought that was a success.

            “She’s never visited your grave. Shion used to go frequently, and I went too, though not as often lately. Safu never went with us.”

            Nezumi wondered what would happen with his gravestone. A small part of him wanted to see it, but mostly, he never wanted to go near it, he wanted to pretend it wasn’t there.

            “Her grandmother died a month after you left. It was a terrible time, both Shion and I were not in the place to be as strong as we should have been for her.”

            Nezumi let his hand fall from his hair. “I didn’t know that.” He’d met Safu’s grandmother less than a handful of times. He didn’t know much about her but that she was Safu’s only family.

            Karan slid her hand across the table and held Nezumi’s, and the warmth of her skin reminded him of things that hurt, but he ignored the pain, didn’t move away from her.

            “I know you want to blame yourself, but none of this is anyone’s fault. Safu is angry, but she loves you. It’s the same for Shion.”

            Nezumi looked at their hands together on the table. “Are you angry?” he asked quietly.

            Karan’s hand squeezed his gently. “I’m too relieved to have you back to have room for anger, honey.”

            Nezumi looked at her and tried to understand how she could care about him as much as she did, how for all this time that had never changed, but he didn’t have any reason not to understand.

            Nezumi felt the same way for her, and for a moment, he wanted to tell her that he loved her too, he wanted her not just to know but to hear it from him at least once, but his voice caught in his throat and he looked away from Karan, slipped his hand free from hers. He tried to eat the soup in front of him to give himself an excuse to say nothing at all.

*

After five days in Shion’s apartment, Nezumi was restless.

            He took four pain pills – careful to count them – waited ten minutes for them to kick in, then left the apartment.

            The closer he got to the high school, the more he wanted to turn back. He stopped outside a shoe repair shop to lean against the brick of it, catch his breath. He kept walking, had to pass the bakery, tried not to breathe but couldn’t hold his breath, and the smell of cinnamon and chocolate and sugar had him dry heaving in the alleyway he ducked into.

            “Fuck,” he hissed, kicking the wall of the alleyway before he took a deep breath, held it, and left the alleyway to stride past the bakery without looking at it.

            Seeing the high school, by the time Nezumi finally got to it, was not much better. His nose started bleeding, but he’d anticipated this, stuffed his pockets with tissues, and held one to his nose as he walked through the doors he used to walk through every day with Shion beside him.

            Through his tissue, the smell of the school itself was still the same, a smell Nezumi had not noticed before but now seemed overwhelming, though he couldn’t place it. Was it linoleum? Paint? Some sort of cleaning agent?

            The hall was empty, and Nezumi was grateful for it. He braced against the wall of the entranceway and switched to another tissue, as the one he’d been using was soaked. He considered the fact that he didn’t want to show up at Shion’s classroom with blood all over his face and glanced around, trying to remember the way to the nearest bathroom.

            He pushed himself off the wall, walked slowly down the hallway, holding his tissue up to his nose with one hand and trialing the other on the lockers he passed, forgetting momentarily about the bathroom and finding himself in front of Shion’s locker.

            Nezumi reached out, touched the smooth surface of it. He ignored the need to vomit because there was nothing in him that could come out. There was something wet on his cheek, and Nezumi wiped at it, looked his fingers, saw that it was blood.

            He lifted his hand to his ears. They were bleeding, but they did that often, and Nezumi didn’t give a shit about his ears, didn’t give a shit about what was going on in his body that the pain meds were only mildly covering.

            He was going to die anyway. He was vaguely certain of that. He’d rather not do it slowly in Shion’s apartment with Shion avoiding him.

            Nezumi wiped his fingers on another tissue and stopped pressing one over his nose to instead push tissues at his ears while he turned Shion’s lock with his free hand.

            The old combination didn’t work, but Nezumi hadn’t necessarily expected it to.

            When Nezumi tried to step away from Shion’s old locker, he nearly fell. The dizziness that hit was abrupt and had him stepping back, leaning against the locker, sliding down it into a heap on the linoleum. He adjusted himself to sit with his back to the locker and tilted his head back against it, pressed a clean tissue to his nose, glanced at the many balled tissues in his other hand that were soaked with blood.

            He couldn’t see Shion like this. He was somewhat positive blood was caked over different parts of his face. His hands were covered in it. He was running out of tissues despite having planned ahead.

            He would get up, and he would leave, and he would take more pills the next day and try again. Nezumi breathed, giving himself a minute to prepare to stand, and halfway through that minute the bell rang, the sound of it so familiar a burst of hot pain shot through his chest and he nearly shouted.

            “Shit,” he breathed, slamming his head back against the locker to distract himself from the burning in his chest, and then his head was hurting, and he lifted his hand to touch his ear and felt blood streaming out.

            He glanced down at the shoulder of his t-shirt, saw that it was painted with his blood.

            “Shit,” he said again as students began to appear, and then the students saw him, and Nezumi closed his eyes because he didn’t care to see how a bunch of high schoolers were reacting to a guy dying against one of their lockers.

            “Dude, are you okay?”

            Nezumi didn’t open his eyes to see whomever was addressing him. “I’m great,” he muttered.

            “You’re bleeding.”

            “You should be a fucking detective.”

            The student was silent then, and Nezumi was relieved.

            “I’ll get a teacher,” another one was saying.

            “He doesn’t look like a student.”

            “Is he a teacher?”

            “I don’t think so.”

            “That’s my locker. Do you think I should tell him to move? I really need my history textbook.”

            “You can’t tell him to move, look at him!”

            “Maybe we should call the hospital.”

            “You know what that looks like? The blood coming out of his ears? That’s a symptom of someone who loves an amoritis host. You don’t think…”

            “What, that he’s Professor Shion’s lover?”

            “Please don’t say lover, I hate that word. It just sounds creepy, don’t you think?”

            “Is Professor Shion gay?”

            “Uh, obviously.”

            “No, he’s not, who told you that?”

            “Shut up, there he is!”

            Nezumi pulled his knees up to his chest and pressed his forehead into them.

            “Nezumi, what are you doing here?” Shion’s voice was too close and Nezumi dug his nails into his thighs.

            “Fuck,” he breathed. He wasn’t going to pass out in the school hallway. He refused to pass out in the school hallway.

            “You’re covered in blood. Where is it coming from?”

            Nezumi needed Shion to stop talking. There was a ringing in his ears, and he clenched his jaw, thought his head would split open and then there’d be even more blood.

            “This is where I work, Nezumi. You can’t be here. Do you know how rare it is for amoritis hosts to get jobs around children? Especially as teachers. The districts fear that a student could fall in love unintentionally because that’s what teenagers do, they fall in love without thinking, they fall in love like there are no consequences to it. Do you think I wanted to work here, to come back here again when I thought you were dead? It’s the only place that would hire me because my old teachers vouched for me.”

            Nezumi stopped trying to tune Shion out and instead focused completely on the hardness of his voice. Maybe Safu had been right. Maybe Karan was the one who didn’t understand.

            Maybe Shion did hate him, and that would make things so much easier, let the man hate him, Nezumi would be an idiot to remain in love with someone who hated him, he’d have to fall out of love soon, it would all be over soon, they could just be friends again soon.

            “Fuck, Nezumi, how could you do this to us?” Shion whispered, and Nezumi closed his eyes.

            If Shion hated him, and Nezumi stopped loving him, and they were friends again, everything would go back to how it had been. Before everything started to change, and Nezumi tried to pinpoint the moment, maybe it was the kiss on their shared fifteenth birthday but maybe it was before that, maybe it was after.

            Nezumi tightened his fingers in his hair. Thinking about it hurt, so he stopped.

            “I’ll call Safu to come get you,” Shion said quietly, and then his voice was louder but coming from farther away. “Go to class, kids. Now, let’s go, I know you all have somewhere to be.”

            Nezumi passed out before Safu collected him from the floor in front of Shion’s old locker.

 

_four years ago_

“Want me to decorate your locker with balloons and shit?” Nezumi asked.

            Shion closed the door of it and glared at him. “I don’t want to talk about my birthday, as you know. Can you hold these for a second?”

            “Why, of course, Your Majesty,” Nezumi took Shion’s books in one hand and rested the elbow of his other on Shion’s shoulder while Shion rummaged through his backpack. “Does that mean you don’t want a gift?”

            “Since when did you give me gifts on my birthday?”

            “It’s the big eighteenth. I have something special in mind.”

            “Does that mean I have to get you a gift too?” Shion asked, biting half the stick of gum he’d unearthed from his backpack and offering Nezumi the other half.

            Nezumi stuck out his tongue, and Shion rolled his eyes, but he put the gum on Nezumi’s tongue anyway.

            “And yes, it does. This isn’t mint.”

            “It’s strawberry.”

            “It’s disgusting.”        

            “I was getting tired of mint,” Shion replied, not asking for his books back even when his backpack was over his shoulders again, but they were light enough, and Nezumi forgot he was carrying them. “It’s in two days, Nezumi, I have no idea what to get you. Can you just tell me what you want?”

            “And spoil the surprise?”       

            “You’ll hate it if you don’t tell me what to get you.”  

            “That’s not a good attitude.” Nezumi steered them around the corner to meet Safu at her locker, where she was waiting with her arms crossed over her chest.

            “If you guys are going to take so long, I’ll just meet you in class.”

            “What’s the rush?” Nezumi asked, as the bell rang.

            “That’s the rush. We’re late,” Safu said dryly.

            “I give you full permission to blame it on me. Say I knocked your books out of your hands on the way to class and you were held up trying to collect them all. Tell the prof I’m a bully,” Nezumi said, following Safu down the hall.

            “Nezumi, your arm is really heavy, you know,” Shion complained.

            “That wasn’t there yesterday,” Safu said, stopping her fast pace and apparently forgetting about their tardiness, and Nezumi stopped as well, glanced at the poster on the wall beside the girls’ bathroom.

            _Pick Your Prom Theme – Vote online for “Under the Sea” “A Winter Wonderland” or “City Night Stars”!_

            “Prom isn’t even until March. And isn’t it the prom committee’s job to pick the theme so we don’t have to think about it?” Safu said.

            “There’s a committee?” Nezumi asked.

            “City Night Stars sounds nice,” Shion said, and Nezumi dropped his arm from Shion’s shoulder to turn and look at him fully.

            “You’re going?”

            “It’s a high school experience, Nezumi.”

            “So are football games and food fights, but I haven’t seen you engaging in any of those.”

            “Those don’t interest me.”

            “And prom does?”

            “Sure. You like to dance too, so I don’t know why you’re so opposed,” Shion pointed out.

            “You like to dance?” Safu asked.

            “I never said I was opposed,” Nezumi said slowly, looking at Shion carefully, but there was nothing on his face to read but a smile that spread like a secret.

            “Have some school spirit, Nezumi, we’ve only got another year here. It wouldn’t kill you to let your hair down.”

            “Yeah, Nezumi, let your hair down,” Safu sang, laughing, reaching out and pulling Nezumi’s ponytail out.

            “Hey!” he shouted, dropping Shion’s books that he forgot he’d been carrying to reach up into his hair, which fell onto his shoulders.

            “Don’t you kids have somewhere to be?”

            They turned to see a professor sticking her head out of a door and all chorused, “Sorry, Professor!” before Nezumi picked up Shion’s books and they ran down the hall to their class – the first class all three had together since grade school, and it was chemistry, and Nezumi had always hated chemistry, but now he couldn’t remember what was so terrible about it.

 

_five years ago_

Nezumi had never had alcohol before, and therefore he’d never been drunk before, and therefore he’d never sang karaoke before, so it was a night of many firsts.

            “You’re a good singer,” Shion said, after Nezumi’s song, and Nezumi grinned at him.

            “Yeah?”

            “I never knew that. How come I didn’t know that? I’m supposed to know everything about you.”

            “You’re drunk,” Nezumi said, pointing, touching Shion’s lips, and Shion’s hand wrapped around his.

            “No, that’s you, Nezumi,” Shion said, and he was laughing, and damn, how Nezumi loved that laugh.

            “Fuck,” Nezumi breathed, while Shion let go of his hand. He was in love. He was in love with Shion. “Oh, fuck,” he said again, his exhale slipping through his words.

            Shion tilted his head. “You okay, Nezumi?”

            “If he throws up on my grandma’s sofa, I’ll kill you both,” Safu said, from the other room.

            Nezumi pushed his fingers through his hair, fumbling, nearly poking himself in the eye.

            “Careful. Want me to put your hair up for you?”

            “I’m hot,” Nezumi admitted, and Shion leaned closer to him, was facing him and his hands were collecting Nezumi’s hair from his neck where strands stuck with sweat, Shion’s fingers slipping around his ears, Shion’s fingers were combing hair out from his eyes.

            Nezumi looked at Shion’s gaze on him, the concentration to do such a stupid thing as put up his hair, and then it was up and Shion’s hands were gone.

            “Is that better?” Shion asked, and Nezumi nodded.

            “Yeah, it’s better,” he whispered.

            “Drinks, boys,” Safu said, coming back into the room and handing them glasses, and Nezumi took his, downed it, realized only afterward that it wasn’t burning his throat.

            “Is this still vodka?” he asked, looking into his glass when it was empty.

            “Of course,” Safu said easily.

            Nezumi held the empty glass out to Shion. “Is it?”

            Shion smiled – that damn smile, Nezumi couldn’t stand it – and peered into it. “Looks empty to me.”

            “It’s empty,” Nezumi informed Safu, who rolled her eyes.

            “You’re both ridiculous.”

            “Where are we?” Nezumi asked, standing up from the couch, and Shion stood up too, held Nezumi’s arm while Nezumi swayed. “Oh.”

            “Careful, there. We’re at Safu’s remember? Her grandma is staying the night at her friend who’s sick.”

            “Is that alcohol?” Nezumi asked, pointing to the glass Shion was holding.

            “Yes.”

            “Can I have some?”

            “I think you’ve had enough.”

            “Don’t give him more, Shion. I don’t want him throwing up, he’s clearly a lightweight. I hold my liquor better than him, he should be embarrassed, his body mass is much more substantial than mine.”

            “That’s mean,” Nezumi said, frowning, and Shion smiled again.

            Nezumi stared at it, felt his chest squeeze.

            “What?” Shion asked, touching his lips. “Is there something on my face?”

            “That smile is going to kill me one day,” Nezumi admitted, and Shion dropped his fingers from his lips.

            “What did you say?”

            “I knew this was going to happen,” Safu complained, but she felt miles away, there was only Shion, there was only that smile, and Nezumi reached out, touched it again, this time with his thumb, rubbing the pad of it hard over Shion’s bottom lip.

            “Nezumi,” Shion said, lips moving under Nezumi’s thumb.

            “Shion, he’s drunk. Don’t take advantage.”

            Safu wasn’t miles away. She was standing next to them, and then her hand was around Nezumi’s wrist, and she was pulling Nezumi’s hand from Shion’s lip.

            “Go get him another glass of water, will you?” Safu said, taking Nezumi’s glass from his other hand and giving it to Shion, who looked away from Nezumi to take it.

            He wasn’t smiling anymore, and Nezumi turned to watch him walk away, tried to walk after him but tripped on his own feet, and Safu pulled him up.

            “Nezumi,” she said.

            “Mm?”

            “Look at me.”

            Nezumi didn’t want to look at her. He wanted to watch Shion, who was in the kitchen that was beside the living room now, but he was looking at Nezumi across the rooms, and Nezumi grinned at him.

            “Hey, Your Majesty!” he called, and Shion smiled again.

            “Hey, Nezumi.”

            “Hey,” Safu said, more sharply, and Nezumi finally looked at her, only because her hand was under his chin, and her grip was tight and jerking him to look at her. “You’re drunk,” she said.

            “I’m not,” Nezumi slurred, then realized he was slurring – how long had that been going on?

            “You absolutely cannot tell Shion how you feel in my house. You absolutely cannot have sex with him on my sofa. Please, for my sake, do it when I’m not around so I’m not forced to watch you two idiots act surprised at the obvious. Do you understand?”

            Nezumi grinned, having heard nothing at all after Safu mentioned having sex with Shion on her couch. “You’re gonna stop us?”

            “Repeat after me, Nezumi. I’m not going to confess to Shion while I’m plastered.”

            “Do you like him too?”

            Safu sighed. “You’re hopeless.”

            “What are you guys whispering about?” Shion asked, beside them again, and Safu released Nezumi’s chin.

            He rubbed at it, then looked at the cup Shion held.

            “What’s in there?”

            “A special drink for you,” Shion replied, and Nezumi took it gladly, hoped it was alcohol so he could get drunk, he’d never gotten drunk before, he’d always thought it was a terrible idea to willingly interfere with his own faculties and sense of control, but now he wanted it.

            Now, Nezumi wanted to take every risk Shion would give him.

 

_six years ago_

“You guys go, I don’t like heights,” Safu said, and Shion frowned.

            “You’re not scared of heights.”

            “It’s a new fear I’ve only just developed,” Safu said, stealing a clump from Nezumi’s cotton candy.

            “Take the rest, it’s too sweet, it’s making me feel sick,” Nezumi said.

            “You can’t get out of line, Safu, we’ve been waiting here for a half hour and we’re finally at the front!” Shion said, pulling both Nezumi and Safu forward as the line inched up for the Ferris wheel.

            Nezumi looked up at it. The night was dark, but the seats on the Ferris wheels had big yellow bulbs along the side, and Nezumi watched them turn in a slow circle.

             “I’m bored.”

             “It’s worth the wait, Nezumi, trust me.”

             “It seems boring. Even worse than standing in this line. Absolutely not worth the wait.”

            “You have to go on the Ferris wheel at some point in your life,” Shion said.

            “That’s what you said about trying cotton candy,” Nezumi muttered.

            “Really, you two can just go alone,” Safu said, and Nezumi narrowed his eyes at her.

            “Why don’t you want to go? It’s boring, isn’t it?”

            Safu gave Nezumi a flat look. “It’s not boring, you idiot.”

            “Why am I an idiot?”

            “Three together, please,” Shion told the man beside the gate to the wheel, and the man nodded at them.

            “He means two,” Safu argued, but Nezumi grabbed her arm.

            “He means three.”

            “What are you doing?” Safu hissed.

            “What are you doing? If I’m suffering this, so are you.”

            “Don’t you even know what Ferris wheels mean?” Safu asked, shrugging her arm free from Nezumi’s grip.

            “What do they mean?”

            Safu just shook her head. “I tried to do you a favor, you can’t say I didn’t.” 

            “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nezumi pointed out mildly, looking away from Safu to watch Shion, who was leaning against the gate, head tilted up to watch the Ferris wheel.

            “Use your eyes, Nezumi. Look at the people sharing the carriages on the wheel, and tell me what you see.”

            Nezumi turned away from Shion reluctantly. He looked back at the Ferris wheel, but this time not at the lights.

            A teenage boy and girl in the carriage at the top. An elderly couple in that one. Another teenage couple sharing cotton candy in the next carriage. Another couple with cotton candy in the carriage above them.

            “A lot of people like this cotton candy,” Nezumi observed. He ran his tongue over his teeth, certain the few bits of fluff he’d eaten had given him cavities on their own.

            “I’m not talking about the cotton candy.”

            “Then what are you talking about? You know I hate guessing games,” Nezumi replied, and then the wheel was stopping, the gate was opening, and the couples were getting off, and Nezumi understood – they were _all_ couples.

            They all walked off holding hands, and then Shion was reaching back, grabbing Nezumi’s hand.

            “Come on, it’s our turn! You’re going to love it, you can see the whole town from the top.”

            Nezumi glanced back at Safu as Shion pulled him, then dropped his cotton candy in the trash can beside them to free his hand so he could reach out at the last second, grab Safu’s hand, pull her behind him.  

            “What are you doing?” she hissed.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nezumi hissed back.

            “Fine, be in denial.”

            “Whoever has the middle seat will be at a disadvantage,” Shion was saying, “cause you won’t have the view from the sides, but the front view is still – ”

            “Safu will sit in the middle because she’s scared of heights,” Nezumi said, pulling her and freeing his hand from Shion’s so that he could push her between them.

            “I don’t remember you being scared of heights,” Shion said, squinting at Safu as she settled beside him, and Nezumi slipped onto the seat at the end before the carriage door was closed on them.

            “It’s a new fear, remember,” Nezumi said, before Safu could reply.

            Safu looked at him pointedly. “And what are you scared of, Nezumi?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Not even your feelings?” she whispered, and Nezumi just looked at her.

            “Don’t be so ridiculous.”

            “Guys, stop having your secret conversation and look!” Shion interrupted, and Nezumi sighed, looked away from Safu and was distracted.

            The town fair was shrinking slowly beneath them as their carriage rose. Shion had insisted they come to the fair on its opening night, the first year Nezumi tagged along with Safu and Shion, not having seen a point of it before, and still not seeing a point until they were at the top of the wheel, and the entire town was below them, but it looked like it could have been the entire world.

            “Isn’t it beautiful?” Shion asked, his voice hushed.

            Safu’s elbow prodded Nezumi’s side. “Isn’t he beautiful?” she whispered in his ear, and when Nezumi replied, he didn’t know whom he was replying to.

            “Absolutely worth the wait.”

*


	7. Chapter 7

_nine years ago_

Nezumi bet Shion would be a terrible kisser.

            He’d interrupt the kiss with stupid facts. He was always offering stupid facts.

            He’d say something like – _Two thirds of people tilt their head to the right rather than the left when they kiss._

            Or – _Kissing sends chemicals to the brain that make your pupils dilate._

            Or – _The longest record for kissing stands at over two days._

            Or – _The lips have a disproportionate number of nerve endings compared to the rest of the body._

            Nezumi researched kissing so he’d be prepared. So he’d know everything Shion would interrupt a kiss to say, so there’d be no need for interruption at all if they ever were to kiss, so they’d both know everything, and the only surprise would be how warm Shion’s lips would be.    

            And Nezumi thought, when he thought about it, that they’d be warmer than the sun.

 

_eight years ago_

Nezumi was taller than Shion now, so he had to rethink everything in his head, reimagine it.

            It was better this way. He would no longer have to tilt his head up to kiss Shion, but could look down at him. From this viewpoint, he would see different things. He would see the bridge of Shion’s nose. He would see Shion’s eyebrows. He would see Shion’s eyelashes. He would see Shion’s upper lip.

            But he wouldn’t see any of it for long, because he’d close his eyes when they kissed – if they kissed, not that they would. They weren’t going to kiss, and that was why Nezumi had to think about it.

            Because it wasn’t going to happen in real life, so it had to happen somewhere, and that somewhere happened to be in Nezumi’s head, and the first time he masturbated he thought about what Shion’s face might look like from up above instead of down below, and it was so incredible he had to think about it for seventeen nights straight, the longest he’d ever gone without sleeping over at the bakery in years, but he wasn’t about to masturbate in the guest room across the hall from Shion, he wasn’t going to risk dirtying the sheets that Karan would have to wash.

 

_seven years ago_

The night after Shion kissed him, Nezumi pressed his face into the pillow in the guest room across Shion’s room and muffled the sounds he made into it, his hand quickening beneath the waistband of his boxers.

            He’d imagined kissing Shion for so long, but now he didn’t have to imagine that, now he knew exactly how that felt, now he could imagine other things.

            For the first time, Nezumi let himself imagine everything, and he moaned when he came, then froze, worried Shion would hear him from across the hall, would think he was having a nightmare, would slip into his bed – Nezumi thought about Shion in bed beside him and then he was biting his pillowcase, rubbing himself again, his palm slick and his body still pulsing from when he’d just climaxed hardly a minute before, but he could never have enough.

 

_six years ago_

Shion would touch every part of Nezumi.

            He’d be curious, the way he always was. He’d probably ask questions, the way he did in class, but his questions would skate over the skin of Nezumi’s jawline, or his collarbones, or the tops of his shoulders –

            _Does this feel good, Nezumi?_

_Do you like this, Nezumi?_

_Can I touch you here, Nezumi?_

_Can you fuck me harder, Nezumi?_

            And Nezumi wouldn’t answer because when he didn’t answer Shion, Shion always asked again, he was a determined sort of kid, he was stubborn, he did not like to be ignored.

            _I asked if you wanted me, Nezumi._

_Don’t you like this, Nezumi?_

_Don’t you want me to touch you like this, Nezumi?_

_Don’t you want to fuck me harder, Nezumi?_

And after he asked again, Nezumi would still not reply because he preferred actions to words, and he prove to Shion that it felt good, and he would tighten his fingers in Shion’s hair if he liked where Shion touched, and he would reposition Shion’s hands if there was somewhere else he wanted to be touched, and he would fuck Shion harder if that was what Shion wanted – and he would, Nezumi knew he would.

            Shion did not like to be coddled. He liked to argue. He liked to yell. He liked to be taken seriously, and Nezumi would take him seriously – would make him ask just to hear him say the words, but after he asked, Nezumi would give Shion anything he wanted.

            Anything in the world.

 

_five years ago_

Shion was giving his midterm history presentation, and Nezumi settled in his seat, rested his arm on his desk and his cheek in his palm.

            He would get up in a minute. He would walk right up to Shion, who would look at him in confusion and shake his head. Who would continue his presentation because he was an A student and prepared for anything, any sort of distraction – he made Nezumi watch this same presentation four times, he told Nezumi to distract him on purpose, he told Nezumi not to hold back so he could be ready for everything during the real presentation.

            But Nezumi had held back during Shion’s practice runs, and now he couldn’t any longer. Now, he would stand in front of Shion, and Shion would squint at him, tell him with his eyes that practice was over, this was the real thing, he didn’t want to be distracted right now, all the while continuing with his spiel on the economic consequences of America’s Great Depression on Asia.

            Nezumi would kneel in front of Shion. Would unbutton Shion’s jeans. Would unzip them while Shion talked about rural marketing. Would pull them down by their belt loops while Shion continued on industrialization. Would have them down by Shion’s ankles and reach back up for his boxers while Shion stuttered on dates – _In the 1830s, no, sorry, I meant the 1930s. In the 1930s…_

            Nezumi would stop listening to Shion as he leaned forward to press his lips to Shion’s thighs. He’d feel Shion’s hands in his hair as his mouth got closer to where Shion wanted it. He’d feel Shion take out his ponytail as he opened his mouth, took Shion completely, tasted him, and Shion would taste odd at first, but Nezumi would get used to it, wouldn’t mind it so much, might even like it as he bobbed his head back and forth, feeling Shion’s fingers tighten in his hair, feeling Shion harden in his mouth, hearing Shion discuss the devaluation of currency in Japan with a shaking voice that would break off when Nezumi used that technique with his tongue he’d researched on the internet in the library the week before when he was supposed to be doing research for his cinematic history class.

            And when Shion climaxed, Nezumi would let everything fill his mouth before he stood up from his knees and kissed Shion, open-mouthed, interrupting Shion’s statement on the fall of agrarian prices, letting Shion taste himself in front of their entire class, Shion’s hands still in his hair, Shion’s back against the blackboard, chalk staining his t-shirt, presentation on the economic consequences of America’s Great Depression on Asia forgotten as Shion’s cum dripped out both their lips before Shion pulled half an inch away from him, asked him in a whisper –

            “How was I?”

            Nezumi nearly fell out of his seat. He steadied himself and blinked at Shion, who looked at him expectantly.

            “What?”

            “Was it okay? My presentation? You were paying attention, weren’t you? I kept looking at you, and you seemed to be concentrating, which was pretty surprising actually. But it was okay, right? I think I messed up the dates on…”

            Nezumi watched Shion’s lips while he spoke. Shion was whispering because another presenter was getting up to the front, getting ready for her presentation, and Nezumi was supposed to go after her, but he felt his hard-on straining at his jeans and he couldn’t remember a word of his presentation, couldn’t even remember what he was presenting on.

            “But otherwise, it was good, right?” Shion was asking, when Nezumi refocused on him, and Nezumi took a breath, then nodded.

            “Yeah, Your Majesty. It was amazing.”

            When Shion smiled, his lips were completely dry, and Nezumi thought about wetting them.

 

_four years ago_

In four days, Shion would turn eighteen.

            If he got amoritis, Nezumi guessed his scar would be a stripe down the middle of him.

            Or maybe it would climb up his fingers in patterns.

            Or maybe it would polka dot him like chicken pox, and Nezumi would kiss every one of them, and with every press of his lips, the polka dot would disappear until Shion was clean again, bare again, just his pale skin that Nezumi would keep kissing – all over, just in case.

            But Shion wouldn’t get amoritis because people didn’t get amoritis anymore, and even if they did, it wouldn’t be Shion – how could it be Shion? And Shion would be so relieved after his weeks of senseless worry that he’d run into Nezumi’s arms, and Nezumi would catch him while Shion’s knees buckled with his relief, and Nezumi would lower them both onto the carpet of Shion’s floor, and Nezumi would hold Shion while he trembled with his relief – so much relief that Shion would be a little delirious with it, and he’d grin his stupid grin, Nezumi knew the one, so wide it should have broken Shion’s face, so wide it should have broken Nezumi’s heart.

            They would be tangled in each other on Shion’s carpet, and Shion would be so relieved he would forget for a moment that they were just friends, he’d be so relieved that he’d forget for a moment that they’d promised not to fall in love, he’d be so relieved that he’d look up at Nezumi with his wide grin and wider eyes, and then he’d tilt his head up, and Nezumi would tilt his head down, and Shion would be so relieved that he would kiss Nezumi, after three years of not kissing him.

            Shion would be so relieved that a kiss would not be enough. He’d be so relieved that he’d undress just to prove to Nezumi that there was no scar anywhere, he’d be so relieved that he’d ask Nezumi to inspect him anyway, just in case there was a scar, and when Nezumi would inspect him, not find anything amiss, Shion would be even more relieved.

            Relieved to the point that he’d undress Nezumi too. And he’d inspect Nezumi too. And the only scar would be the one on Nezumi’s back, but that had always been there. Even so, Shion would touch it carefully, as if just discovering it, and Nezumi would close his eyes and lay on his stomach on the floor, and Shion would crawl over him, kiss the skin around Nezumi’s scar, kiss all the way up to his shoulder blades, kiss the tops of Nezumi’s shoulders, kiss along Nezumi’s neck, move Nezumi’s hair aside so as not to miss an inch.

            And Nezumi would roll over, and Shion would be on all fours on top of him, and Shion would look at him and say –

            “I want you to have sex with me.”

            – the same way he’d asked Nezumi to kiss him exactly three years earlier, but Shion would be so relieved that a kiss wouldn’t be enough.

            And this time, Nezumi would be older too. And he wouldn’t argue as he had three years before. And he wouldn’t question Shion’s sanity as he had three years before. And he wouldn’t hesitate as he had three years before.

            He would slide his hands along Shion’s body over his, and he would lean up from the carpet to kiss Shion deeply, and he would have sex with Shion until Shion realized it wasn’t about relief at all.

            It was about everything else he felt, and he had to feel it because Nezumi felt it, felt it all so completely it couldn’t be one-sided, it couldn’t be just him, it had to be Shion too.

            It had to be Shion too.

_three years ago_

Nezumi lost his virginity to a guy that he worked with. They worked the late shift at the meat packaging factory and one night instead of going home after his shift Nezumi seduced the guy into fucking him in the locker room.

            It hurt, but it wasn’t the kind of pain Nezumi had felt when he was dying, so Nezumi barely registered it.

            It hurt, but it was nothing at all to the pain Nezumi knew he could feel.

            It hurt, but more than that, it was a relief.

 

_two years ago_

Nezumi couldn’t remember the guy’s name, but went home with him again. He already knew the layout of the guy’s apartment, went straight to the bedroom and stripped off his clothing before the guy had even locked the front door.

            “Someone’s eager,” the guy said when he was in the room as well, and Nezumi tried to remember his name, thought it started with an S or a K or an I.

            “What’s your name?” Nezumi asked, and the guy laughed.

            “Want a drink?”

            “That’s not a name.”

            “Does it matter?”

            It didn’t. Nezumi was not here for conversation. He was not here to fall in love.

            He laid back in the bed, and the sheets had not been changed from the night before, Nezumi could tell immediately.

            He didn’t care. The guy climbed over him and kissed him and Nezumi wished he wouldn’t.

            He was not here to be kissed.

            He kissed back and thought the guy used too much tongue, but Nezumi didn’t tell him so.

            “What’s your name?” the guy asked, after they fucked twice and Nezumi sat up, pulled his hair into a ponytail before he stood from the bed and collecting his clothing.

            “Does it matter?” Nezumi asked.

            The guy laughed. “Come back tomorrow, stranger,” he said, and Nezumi didn’t reply, but they both knew he would.

 

_one year ago_

Nezumi’s back slammed against the wall with each thrust.

            “Fuck, you feel so good, fuck!”

            Nezumi was silent but for the skate of his breaths out his lips. He closed his eyes and listened to praises of the guy who fucked him – Akihiko, he thought – and the thumps of his own back against Akihiko’s kitchen wall.

            It didn’t hurt. It felt good, and that was the point.

 

_one month ago_

After they fucked, Nezumi’s supervisor from the furniture warehouse left the bed.

            His name was Ryan. He was American and spoke Japanese slowly and carefully. He was very young and smelled of cigarette smoke and his hair was a midnight black, but his pubic hair had been white. He had a raised pink scar in a thick strip that circled his upper left thigh, like a garter.

            Nezumi hadn’t said anything about his observations.

            Ryan’s eyes were dark brown, but when he came out of the bathroom, they were a vivid red.

            “Sorry,” Ryan said, in his slow Japanese. “My contacts kept bothering me.”

            Nezumi had been able to tell. While they’d fucked, Ryan kept rubbing at his eyes.

            Nezumi had not known Ryan had amoritis before that night despite having worked at the furniture warehouse for three months. He pushed up onto his elbow and propped his cheek on his palm so he could look down at Ryan, who had returned to the bed and laid on his back and looked up at Nezumi with his red eyes.

            “Aren’t you worried I’ll fall in love with you?” Nezumi asked, and Ryan laughed. He had a laugh like a child’s.

            “I don’t think you could be in love with anybody, Nezumi,” he said, speaking slowly, but Nezumi didn’t mind his childish Japanese or the clumsy way he said Nezumi’s name.

            Nezumi felt nothing, looking at Ryan’s red eyes. He thought of Shion, brought him consciously to mind and pictured him in his head and waited to feel something, but there was nothing at all, not even pain.

            Ryan looked away from Nezumi, up at the ceiling. He raised his arms, intertwined his fingers on the pillow, and lifted his head to rest it on his open palms.

            “My high school, ah, sweetheart? Is that how you say it?”

            “Yeah.”

            “He was in love with me in America, so I left. I came here and got a job like you, then got promoted to boss.”

            Nezumi nodded, and Ryan’s red eyes slid to his, looked at him carefully.

            “He is dead anyway,” Ryan said, in his broken Japanese.

            “When?”

            “Six months after I left.”

            Nezumi laid back down, rested his cheek on Ryan’s pillow. Ryan turned his head, and they looked at each other, and Nezumi felt nothing, and he pretended Ryan was Shion, and he still felt nothing, and he decided he was no longer in love.

            He decided that, after four years, it was safe to go back.

            “Did I kill him?” Ryan asked in a whisper, and when Nezumi looked closely, he thought he could see that a few of the hairs of Ryan’s eyebrows were white, as if they’d grown in after the last time Ryan had dyed them.

            “Probably,” Nezumi said, and Ryan’s red eyes turned sad, and Nezumi realized he should have lied.

 

_present_

Nezumi was not asleep when Shion walked into the room. It was Shion’s bedroom, and Shion had every reason to be there, but it was the middle of the night and he hadn’t come into his own apartment for a week to begin with.

            “Shion?” Nezumi asked, but he didn’t have to ask – the pain slamming into him was enough, and there was also Shion’s bright white hair, clearly visible in the dark room.

            Shion was pulling off his jacket. And then he was pulling off his sweater, and Nezumi sat up, thought maybe he was dreaming when Shion pulled off his t-shirt.

            “Try not to pass out,” Shion said, and Nezumi decided that yes, this was a dream, as Shion was unbuttoning his jeans and then pulling them off too.

            Pain crashed through him, but there was something else too, and Nezumi tightened his hands on the blanket.

            “What are you doing?” Nezumi asked, even though he could see clearly what Shion was doing – his eyes were fully adjusted to the dark, and he could see without doubt that Shion was pulling off his boxers.

            Nezumi looked away from him. Before doing so, he saw that Shion’s scar did indeed travel past his neck, down his torso, wound around his body, and Nezumi stared at the ceiling and tried not to pass out as Shion had instructed.

            “When did you last take the amoritis pills?”

            “An hour ago,” Nezumi said, glancing at Shion’s clock on Shion’s nightstand before looking at Shion’s blanket over his legs.

            “Okay. Good. How do you feel?”

            “Shion, what are you doing?”

            “Orgasms release endorphins, the body’s homemade pain-killing hormones.”

            Nezumi squinted at the blanket. “What?” he breathed.

            “Did you not hear me, or do you not understand?”

            Nezumi closed his eyes. “I don’t understand.”

            “Having sex should distract you from the pain, and when you climax, the hormones your body releases will make the pain more bearable.”

            “What?” Nezumi asked again, even more weakly than before.

            “You looked like you were in a lot of pain when you came to the high school. I don’t only want to hurt you. I want to make you feel good too.”

            Nezumi pulled his knees to his chest. “Shit, Shion.”

            “Don’t pass out.”

            Nezumi didn’t say anything. Pain crashed through him, and he reminded his body that he was just dreaming, this wasn’t real, no need for this pain, no need to black out when he was already unconscious.

            The mattress shifted beneath him, and Nezumi gasped against his knees.

            “It won’t work if you pass out.”

            “I can’t help it,” Nezumi said between his clenched teeth.

            “Try,” Shion said quietly, and his voice was incredibly close, and Nezumi had never felt pain the way he did then, an indescribable sort of pain, not a burning or a stinging or a crashing or a squeezing or a stabbing or a crushing, but a combination, something terrible and obliterating, and he knew he was going to pass out.

            And then there were Shion’s fingers against his hair, tucking Nezumi’s bangs behind his ear, and then there was Shion’s whisper into the shell of his ear, Shion’s lips touching Nezumi’s skin.

            “Do you want to have sex with me?”

            Nezumi had been trapped in a burning building when he was seven. He’d had flames stripping the skin off his back and surrounding him on every side, but even then, he hadn’t fought as hard to survive as he did in that moment with Shion’s whisper curling against his ear.

            Nezumi couldn’t speak, so he nodded, his face still ducked into his knees, but he knew Shion understood as then there were Shion’s hands on him, guiding him out of the ball he was curled into, laying him down on his back, and Nezumi closed his eyes, pressed his hand over them, didn’t look at Shion as he felt Shion’s hands pulling the blanket from his body, slipping up his shirt, touching him and slipping down, between his sweats and boxers and skin, pulling off his sweats and boxers, and it felt good and terrible, and Nezumi shook against the bed.

            “Tell me what to do to you,” Shion said, his lips at Nezumi’s now, and Nezumi gasped against Shion’s mouth, couldn’t speak at all.

            “I can’t,” he breathed, and even though no sound came out, Shion must have heard him.

            “That’s okay,” Shion said gently, and his hand was sliding down the flat of Nezumi’s stomach, over his navel and lower, lower, lower, and Nezumi arched his back against the bed, couldn’t rationalize the pain with Shion’s touch, the pressure building in him, how incredible it felt and how much he wanted to shout out, sink into the mattress away from Shion and never feel the absence of Shion’s touch all the same.

            Nothing made sense.

            Shion’s mouth replaced his hand, and Nezumi lifted his hands from his eyes to wrap them around his pillow, squeeze it tight, squeeze his eyes tighter.

            Shion stopped before Nezumi climaxed, and he opened his eyes to see Shion hovering above him.

            Pain slammed into him, over and over with every beat of his heart, a constant thing that shook him when Shion’s hand was on his cheek, when Shion was leaning down, when Shion kissed him with warm, wet lips, deep enough to kill Nezumi, then gone again, looking down at Nezumi again, who blinked up, his vision blurred.     

            “You’re crying,” Shion said.

            “Don’t stop,” Nezumi managed.

            He would die a thousand times to be kissed by Shion again.

            “Do you want to bottom or top? When I imagined it, you were on the bottom, but I don’t want to hurt you.”

            Nezumi managed to nod through his pain. “You can’t hurt me.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “Yes,” Nezumi breathed, and Shion was gone from him, and Nezumi closed his eyes, needed him back, and then he was.

            “A condom,” Shion said, Nezumi supposed in explanation of his brief absence, he didn’t really care one way or the other. “Are you going to pass out?”

            Nezumi made himself open his eyes again. Shion’s were red and wide, and Nezumi knew he was going to pass out, there was no way he could bear the pain of it any longer, but he shook his head.

            “No.”

            “Have you had sex before?”

            “Yes.”

            Shion nodded. “Me too. He also had amoritis. He was in the support group I went to for a while.”

            Nezumi let go of the pillow with one hand. Reached up and touched Shion’s lips, and the skin of his fingers burned, he was certain it burned right off, but he didn’t need skin on his fingers, he didn’t need anything but Shion.

            “He killed himself,” Shion said, under Nezumi’s fingers, and Nezumi closed his eyes.

            “Shion.”

            “Sorry.”

            “It’s okay,” Nezumi breathed.

            “I’ve thought about it too.”

            Nezumi couldn’t speak. He would die first either way. He would die right now, he knew he would, he knew he would.

            “I didn’t tell my mom or Safu or anybody. I had to say it. I’m sorry,” Shion whispered.

            Nezumi said nothing. He felt Shion sitting up over him, felt Shion arranging his legs, listened to the sound of a tube opening, assumed this was lube, and then Shion’s fingers were slipping into him, and Nezumi pressed his hand to his lips.

            “Am I hurting you?”

            Nezumi shook his head. Closed his eyes tighter.

            “I know you’re lying,” Shion said, but he didn’t stop, and then it wasn’t his fingers in Nezumi, and Nezumi dug his heels into the mattress and curled his toes and knew that he was making sounds but couldn’t stop making them and did his best to muffle them with his palm over his lips until Shion was moving his palm, was kissing him carefully, briefly, while his body slowly rocked over Nezumi’s.

            “Is this okay?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Is it helping the pain?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Am I making it worse?”

            “No.”

            “Can I go deeper?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Does it feel good?”

            “Yeah.”

            Shion stopped talking to kiss Nezumi again. Nezumi managed to unlatch his hands from where they’d been gripping the sheets and touched Shion’s neck, slid his hand up into Shion’s hair, curled his fingers gently in the strands when Shion fucked him harder.

            Shion made sounds too. He breathed loudly and pressed whispered words into Nezumi’s lips and cheek and neck and shoulder – _Fuck, Nezumi, Nezumi, oh, oh, shit, Nezumi_.

            Nezumi understood that he had already died. He would not have been able to survive this. He had died in his sleep, or maybe he had died in the high school, slumped on the linoleum, his back against Shion’s locker.

            Everything after had been a delusion. Waking up in Shion’s apartment. Drinking the water and pills from the nightstand. Looking up at the ceiling with his eyes adjusting to the dark of the room, and an hour later, Shion at the door, pulling off his jacket, pulling off his sweater, pulling off his shirt.

            He was dead and Shion was climaxing first and Nezumi was climaxing after when Shion pulled out of him and ducked down again and had his mouth around him, and Nezumi came inside Shion’s lips, watched blearily as Shion sat back up, stretched to the nightstand while Nezumi looked at the arch of his body and felt no pain at all, grabbed a tissue and spit into it while Nezumi felt nothing but pulses of heat and relief.

            Nezumi was dead when Shion leaned down and kissed along the creases of his thighs, upward in a line to his navel, up still to his chest, up still to his lips. He was dead when Shion kissed him deep and fully and with too much tongue the way he had when they were fifteen and Nezumi had told him – _Too much tongue_ – and Shion had used less, but now Nezumi wanted more, he would always want more, he was dead and he wanted everything, he was dead and he wanted to die again and again because if this was what death meant, Nezumi couldn’t imagine why he’d spent his whole life desperate to survive.

*


	8. Chapter 8

_present_

Nezumi was not dead.

            He was in the hospital.

            “So are you going to tell me what happened or not?” Safu demanded, not for the first time, her hands on her hips beside the hospital bed.

            Nezumi did not tell her that he could not do so, as it hurt to even think about what happened, and talking about it would only be worse. He didn’t tell her this because he’d already told her this several times and was tired of talking – was tired in general.

            “It’s not something stupid, is it? Nezumi, don’t tell me you did something stupid.”

            “Shut up,” Nezumi groaned, but in truth he didn’t want her to shut up, her incessant lecturing was a distraction from the feeling of his skin tearing from his muscles and his muscles tearing from his bones and his tendons and ligaments tearing from each other.

            “He calls me and tells me you’re about to die, unbelievable, what have I done to deserve a call like that, not to mention for the second time in twenty-four hours! Why am I the person he calls every time you’re about to die? First, I fetch you covered in blood from the high school I really prefer not to make visits to, then I have to pick your vomit-covered body off his bathroom floor and get you to a hospital – It’s not fair, Nezumi, I’m not going to do it again, next time he calls I’ll tell him to take care of you himself or let you die where you are! This is all his mess anyway, I’m trying not to have anything to do with you,” Safu ranted.

            Nezumi rolled over and pressed his face into the flat hospital pillow.

            “Can you not roll over like that? You’re on top of your IV,” Safu snapped.

            Nezumi groaned into the pillow.

            “I know he thinks it’s best to stay at a distance when you’re about to die, but if you’re passed out, it won’t affect you at all if he’s the one to deal with you. I’m not doing it, I’m telling you, Nezumi, this is the last time I’m coming to your side when you’re about to die. Die on your own next time,” Safu snapped, and then there was Karan’s voice, gentle and patient.

            “Safu, maybe you should step out for a little bit.”

            “I should step out? Oh, so I’m only invited when he’s about to die, but when he’s alive I have to leave?” Safu shouted, then was immediately quiet for several seconds before she spoke in hardly more than a whisper – “I’m sorry, Karan. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I’m just…”

            “I know, hon. Why don’t you get something to eat? When’s the last time you’ve eaten?”

            “I’m not hungry.”

            “Can you get me a bottle of water from the cafeteria then?”

            “I know you’re trying to get rid of me.”

            “Safu.”

            “Right, okay, sorry,” Safu mumbled, and then there was the sound of the door opening and closing again.

            Nezumi still did not unearth his face from the pillow. He liked that it was difficult to breathe with his face pressed into it. It was a distraction from the pain.

            After half a minute, there were gentle fingers combing through Nezumi’s hair, and it was another distraction, but this one hurt, and he felt his eyes burning, his tears absorbed the moment they squeezed out his eyelids by the pillowcase pressed into his face.

            “Honey. Can you breathe like that?”

            He couldn’t breathe, and that was the point. He didn’t know why he wasn’t dead. He’d have given anything to just be dead.

            The fingers left his hair, and Karan sighed, her hand on his back now, rubbing circles that hurt.

            “Shion told me what happened,” she said softly, the wrong thing to say as then Nezumi was thinking about what happened – and what happened was he’d had sex with Shion, and the pain had been gone, and all Nezumi had felt was incredible, and then he’d fallen asleep, and then he’d woken up, and Shion had been asleep beside him, and Nezumi had looked at him and immediately fallen into a series of seizures and convulsions and vomited while Shion woke up and tried to help, which made it worse.

            Nezumi moaned into the pillow without meaning to, and Karan’s hand left his back.

            “Am I making it worse?”

            Nezumi was glad the pillow stopped him from being able to speak. It smelled like a terrible cocktail of laundry detergent and vomit, and he suspected this was his own vomit, as there was vomit in his hair and probably on his face and probably everywhere.

            Nezumi groaned again.

            “Honey.”

            The room was quiet but for the beeping of Nezumi’s heart monitor. Nezumi listened to it and was surprised by the steadiness of his heart. Amazed by it, that it could keep beating despite the wreckage of his body.

            “Maybe we have to consider the cure.”

            Nezumi turned Karan’s quiet words over in his head, trying to understand them, to figure them out.

            “It was verified a year ago. I know you must have heard.”

            Nezumi realized what Karan was talking about. He had heard about it getting verified only a month before. He hadn’t considered it. He’d refused to consider it. It wasn’t something to consider.

            “Nezumi – ”

            Nezumi pushed himself out of the pillow that smelled like detergent and his own vomit. He leaned on his elbows and looked at Karan, whose eyes were wet.

            “No,” he said, and his voice was a whisper, but he was not uncertain, he was not unsure.

            Karan’s eyebrows knit. “It’s just something to consider – ”

            “You’re making it worse,” Nezumi said, forcing the words out, falling back onto the mattress because he didn’t have the energy to hold himself up. “You should go.”

            Karan didn’t go. She reached out and put her hand over Nezumi’s, and Nezumi felt as if he was being stabbed by her, broken by her.

            “I would never suggest this, Nezumi, if it was not something I thought was your only choice.”

            “It’s not,” Nezumi breathed, and then the pain was too much, he stopped fighting it, he passed out.

 

_seven years ago_

Nezumi tapped his boots against the mulch every so often to keep swinging slowly, hardly a few inches back and forth, while Safu swung so high beside him Nezumi worried she’d flip all the way over the bar that the swings were attached to.

            “Don’t go so high,” he called to her, as her swing swayed forward parallel to the ground, her legs straight out before curling back in when she rocked back.

            Safu laughed. “Nezumi, are you worried about me? I’m flattered!”

            “It’s my turn,” Shion said. He was leaning against the side of the swingset, licking ice cream from his spoon.

            “You’re still eating.”  

            “You can hold my ice cream while I take a turn.”

            “You’re too old for the swings.”

            “So are you,” Shion protested. “We’re the same age. Besides, you’re not even swinging, you’re just sitting there.”

            “I am swinging,” Nezumi said, kicking at the mulch again, gently enough to swing half a foot forward.

            Shion rolled his eyes and ate more ice cream, then rested his plastic spoon in his bowl with chocolate ringing his lips. “So would you do it?”

            “Do what?”

            “I was waiting for this,” Safu called, from high up in the air before she swung back down again, passing Nezumi as she swung backward, and Nezumi turned his head to watch her hair fly around her face before she careened forward again.

            “Waiting for what?”

            “Don’t you ever look at the news, Nezumi?” Shion asked, walking away from them as he asked it, tossing his bowl and spoon in the trash by a park bench before coming back to stand behind Nezumi. “Want me to push you?”

            “No.”

            Shion grabbed hold of the chains of Nezumi’s swing and pulled Nezumi backwards.

            “I said no,” Nezumi said, gripping the chains tighter as Shion pushed him forward.

            Nezumi sighed and let himself swing forward, keeping his legs up so they wouldn’t drag on the mulch. When he rocked back again, he felt Shion’s hands on his back, flat against him and then pushing him forward again.

            “What was on the news?” Nezumi asked.

            “You have to pump your legs,” Safu called, still swinging too high.

            “A cure,” Shion said.

            “It’s not a cure,” Safu shouted.

            “It’s a possible cure,” Shion amended.

            “A cure for what?”

            “It’s not a cure!” Safu shouted again, going so high the chains of her swing buckled and snapped back as she swung backwards again.

            “Stop going so high,” Nezumi snapped at her.

            “It’s fun!”

            “You’re going to break the swingset.”

            “Amoritis researchers are developing a medicine to erase memory.”

            Nezumi forgot to keep his feet lifted, and they dragged against the mulch, slowing the progress Shion had made with his gentle pushes.

            “It’s so ridiculous,” Safu called, from behind them.

            “Erase memory?”

            “It’s in developing stages. It’s really just theoretical at this point, though there’s rumors that animal testing has already begun. It wouldn’t erase all memory, just episodic memory.”

            Shion didn’t push Nezumi, and Nezumi didn’t kick the mulch. He sat still and looked ahead. The entire park was empty but for them, and Nezumi hadn’t thought about it before, but now he found it strange. It was Sunday afternoon. Shouldn’t the park have been filled with children and parents?

            “Episodic memory is the emotional memories, the memory of experiences. So you’d forget everyone in your life, including the amoritis host. But if researchers get the cure right, you should still retain your semantic memory, which consists of the general facts and knowledge of life and culture. So you’d remember things like how to count, and social cues, and how to speak, and how to walk, and what you should be recycling, and that the grass is supposed to be green, and how to eat with a fork and knife, and those types of factual information facets. But you wouldn’t have memories of your life. You’d lose your experiences and relationships,” Shion explained, and he was still behind Nezumi even though he wasn’t pushing Nezumi any longer.

            Nezumi wondered if Shion was reading from his phone, maybe from an article about this “cure,” or if he was just summarizing, if he just knew all of this information on his own – Shion always did seem to know everything, and Nezumi wondered about this too.

            He wondered if Shion knew everything, even the things Nezumi couldn’t tell him.

            “The idea of a cure is ridiculous. Amoritis is completely psychological,” Safu said, and Nezumi turned to see that she had stopped swinging too, held the chains loosely and was looking back at Nezumi. “Don’t you think?”

            “I don’t know,” Nezumi said. “Why does it seem like we’re always talking about amoritis?”

            “We’re not always talking about amoritis. But this is relevant. They just released news of the cure this morning,” Shion replied.

            “It’s not a cure,” Safu said.

            “Would you do it?” Shion asked.

            “Never,” Safu replied easily.

            “Nezumi?”

            “Do what?” Nezumi asked, looking away from Safu again, tilting his head up and looking at the sky. It was incredibly blue with the whitest clouds, and Nezumi tried to remember the last time he’d seen a sky like that. He couldn’t remember and wondered if he’d lost the memory or if he’d never made one in the first place, if the sky had never been as perfect as it was in this moment.

            “Would you erase all your memories?”

            “Would it be all of them, or just memories of the amoritis host?”

            “They can’t pinpoint specific memories. The best they could do – if they can do it – would be to target the parts of the brain responsible for episodic memory and leave the workings of semantic memory relatively untouched. So even after you got the cure, you could still function normally in society.”

            “But you wouldn’t know anyone,” Nezumi said.

            “And you wouldn’t die,” Shion replied.

            “So you’d do it?” Safu asked, seeming to forget her disapproval of the entire idea.

            “I want to know what Nezumi would do first,” Shion said.

            Nezumi had never been on a swingset before. It was the reason they were on the swings now. He’d mentioned, while he, Shion, and Safu had walked past the park with their ice creams, that he’d never been on a swingset before, and of course Shion had reached out, grabbed his hand, pulled him to the swings and refused to listen to any reason, any argument, any objection.

            Nezumi tapped the toe of his boot against the mulch.

            “How can they erase your memory?”

            “The science behind it is probably incredible,” Shion said, almost breathlessly, and he was no longer behind Nezumi but at the side of the swingset again, leaning against the bar. Nezumi watched the way the wind flicked the strands of Shion’s hair, examined the ring of chocolate ice cream around Shion’s lips.     

            Nezumi had kissed those lips three weeks before.

            _It’s silly that friends shouldn’t be allowed to kiss each other._

            Nezumi hadn’t kissed Shion since, but sometimes he forgot this. Sometimes, he thought he’d kissed Shion a thousand times. More than that. More times than he could count. More times than he could bear.

            “I wouldn’t do it,” Nezumi said, and Shion looked at him.

            “You wouldn’t?”

            “That’s surprising,” Safu said, but Nezumi didn’t look at her.

            He just looked at Shion, who just looked at him.

            “I figured you of all people wouldn’t care about letting go of your past if it gave you a chance to live,” Shion said, and Nezumi thought about the way Shion had looked at him after the kiss, like it was more than just a kiss – it had to be more than just a kiss.

            One day, Nezumi knew, it would be more than just a kiss. He just had to wait for it, and he didn’t mind waiting so much.

            Nezumi shrugged instead of replying to Shion. Instead of telling Shion that he didn’t care about letting go of the past.

            It was the future that he was holding onto.

 

_one month ago_

Nezumi leaned against the doorframe and knocked on it once so that his supervisor turned from his laptop and glanced at him.

            Ryan smiled. “Nezumi.”

            “Got a minute?”

            Ryan nodded, and Nezumi walked in, shut the door behind him and leaned back against it.

            “Did you want to have sex in my office?” Ryan asked.

            Nezumi smiled lightly. “Not quite. I wanted to give you my two weeks’ notice.”

            Ryan tilted his head. “You’re quitting.”

            “Yeah.”

            “It’s not because…” Ryan trailed off, his eyebrows – a dark black Nezumi now knew was courtesy of hair dye – creasing together.

            “Of last night? No, it’s not.”

            “Did I, ah, sexually harassing – harass – you?”

            Nezumi crossed his arms loosely over his chest and shook his head. “No. It’s just time for me to go.”

            Ryan looked at him a moment, then nodded slowly. “Where are you going?”

            “Back home,” Nezumi said, not thinking about it, and when he did, the answer didn’t make sense.

            The bakery hadn’t been his home in four years.

            “Why did you leave in the first place?”

            Nezumi shrugged. He looked around Ryan’s office. There weren’t photographs anywhere. There were no decorations at all.

            “You have a lot of secrets, Nezumi,” Ryan said, and Nezumi glanced back at him.

            “Guess so.”

            Ryan grinned. “I like that about you.”

            “Do I need to fill anything out?” Nezumi asked.

            “I have to find the form. I’ll get it to you.”

            Nezumi nodded, turned and had his hand on the doorknob, had opened the door when Ryan spoke from behind him.

            “Did you see the news?”

            Nezumi glanced back. “What news?”

            “There’s a cure.”

            “A cure?”

            Ryan’s shrug was sheepish. “You’re the only one around who knows I have amoritis, and I had to tell someone. There’s a cure now. Not for the hosts, of course, but the others. The ones who are in love.”

            Nezumi examined Ryan for a moment, then let himself out of Ryan’s office, closed the door behind him, and returned to the factory floor, where he was on packaging duty.

            He waited until his lunch break before checking the news on his phone.

            _“Memory Erasure Cure” for Victims Who Fall in Love with Amoritis Hosts – Approved by all Boards of Health Worldwide, Verified, and Available to the Public!_

            Nezumi didn’t read the article. He pocketed his phone and thought about the pain he didn’t feel.

            He didn’t need a cure. He wasn’t in love with anyone and hadn’t been for years.

 

_present_

Nezumi was out of the hospital and on Shion’s couch because he couldn’t return to Shion’s bed.

            He laid curled in a ball with his head splitting open. He didn’t realize he was crying until Safu told him so.

            “You’re crying.”

            “Shut up.”

            “Just do the cure, Nezumi.”

            Nezumi opened his eyes. Safu sat on the carpet and watched him.

            “Not you too.”

            “I was the one who convinced Karan. You’re not going to make it otherwise. You’ll spend the rest of your life passing out on this couch and bleeding out of your ears, and you’ll just end up dying anyway. What’s the point?”

            Safu’s voice was detached. Nezumi fought the pain in his head that made it hard to focus and tried to really look at her, noticed how exhausted she looked.

            Nezumi closed his eyes again. All he had was his memories, and maybe they were killing him, but without them, he’d have nothing.

            It’d been a long time since he’d had nothing. He was terrified to return to that.

            “I can’t,” Nezumi whispered, but that was a lie.

            He could do the cure. He could forget everything. He could choose to survive over dying on this couch.

            He just couldn’t see how it’d be worth it.

 

_six years ago_

Shion and Nezumi had returned to the park where Nezumi had gone on the swings for the first time in his life a year before and laid on the grass.

            Shion pointed up at the stars and told Nezumi about the constellations, the stories behind them, and Nezumi wondered how someone could know so much, have so much knowledge, have so much admiration, have so much wonder.

            It was incredible to Nezumi, everything that Shion loved. He loved the stars. He loved the stories behind them.

            Nezumi turned away from the stars to look at Shion’s profile. Shion’s eyes were wide and he spoke quickly, and Nezumi wondered what else Shion loved, what else he looked at the way he looked at the night sky.

            “And that star’s called Vega, but another name for it is Tanabata, which comes from a myth about a celestial princess who fell in love with a mortal. Tanabata’s father disapproved of her love, and so she and her love were placed in the sky and separated by the Milky Way. But sometimes, the sky gods create a bridge to reunite them. That’s still not enough because Tanabata wants to be with the one she loves all the time. So when it rains, the raindrops are said to be Tanabata’s tears of sadness on the occasions when her love cannot meet her,” Shion was saying, and Nezumi looked at the sky and tried to see this story.

            Neither of them spoke for a while, and it could have been half an hour before Nezumi asked, “How do you know so much?” but Shion didn’t answer, and Nezumi turned to glance at him, saw that Shion’s eyes were closed.

            Nezumi watched him for a minute, then sat up, looked down at Shion.

            “Shion?” he asked quietly, but Shion didn’t stir, and Nezumi reached out, touched Shion’s hair just with the tips of his fingers. “Time to go home, Your Majesty.”

            When Shion still didn’t wake, Nezumi slid his arms around his friend and lifted him, standing and stumbling but quickly becoming accustomed to Shion’s weight in his arms – one arm around Shion’s back, the other under his knees.

            Shion shifted and murmured something, turning his head to Nezumi’s chest, but he didn’t wake, and Nezumi began the walk back the bakery.

            Nezumi walked very slowly so that Shion would not wake, and Nezumi could hold him just a few moments longer.

 

_five years ago_

Shion had been going on again about the inevitability that Nezumi would end up in Tokyo with him after high school, and he and Nezumi had gotten in a fight, and Nezumi hadn’t seen Shion in five days.

            Nezumi was in the kitchen at the orphanage, on lunch duty to cook for the other kids, when Shion’s voice was in his ear.

            “Can you make me a sandwich with extra jelly?”

            Nezumi paused in spreading peanut butter on a slice of bread and glanced at Shion, who stood next to him in a hairnet.

            “How did you get in here?”

            “I signed in like I always do.”

            “Visitors aren’t allowed in the kitchen.”

            “I get special privileges because all the kids love me,” Shion said.

            This was true. The other kids did love Shion. Those Nezumi’s age knew him well by then, and Shion was good with the newer kids, the younger ones, the ones who’d just lost their families.

            Shion had a way of making them feel safe, but Nezumi had already known Shion had this ability before seeing Shion interact with the other kids at the orphanage.

            “You still shouldn’t be back here.”

            “I wanted to apologize. I hate fighting with you. I haven’t seen you in forever.”

            “It’s been five days,” Nezumi said, resuming spreading peanut butter before he closed the sandwich and set to cutting off the crust.

            Most of the kids didn’t like crust.

            “It felt like forever to me,” Shion said, and Nezumi glanced at him quickly before putting the sandwich aside and grabbing more slices of bread.

            “How is it my fault that your sense of time is terrible?” Nezumi muttered, grabbing the jar of jelly and sticking his knife into it.

            “I know you hate when I talk about you moving to Tokyo like it’s something I can decide. I know your life isn’t my decision. You don’t have to come to the city when I go for university. It just scares me to be away from you.”

            Nezumi scraped jelly from the edge of the bread that threatened to drip onto the counter.

            “That’s not fair to you though,” Shion said quietly.

            “Why would you be scared of such a stupid thing?”

            “To me it’s not a stupid thing.”

            Nezumi spread the peanut butter carefully, making sure the level of it was even everywhere on the bread before pressing it against the slice with jelly.

            “But we’ll always be best friends. Even if you don’t come to the city and there are long stretches of time when we don’t see each other. Nothing will change. Right?” Shion asked, while Nezumi cut off the crusts again, making sure to cut as little of the bread as possible while still removing every bit of crust.

            “Of course, Your Majesty.”

            “Do you promise?”

            “I don’t have to promise.”

            “Do it anyway,” Shion said, and Nezumi sighed, looked at him.

            “Yeah, you idiot, I promise, nothing will change.”

            Shion looked at him that way he did, with his eyes slipping between both of Nezumi’s, and then he frowned. “It’d be easier if you just came to Tokyo,” he said, and Nezumi laughed. “I’m not kidding!”

            “I know you’re not.”

            “They’ve got great theaters in Tokyo.”

            “You’re still on that actor kick?”

            “You’d be an incredible actor.”

            “Your Majesty, if you’re going to take up space in the kitchen, feel free to do some work.”

            While Shion started rambling about acting and grabbed a knife of his own, Nezumi tuned him out.

            Of course he’d end up going to Tokyo too. He only argued with Shion because he hated that Shion talked about it as if it should have been inevitable. As if it wasn’t a choice. As if Nezumi had to follow him wherever he went.

            That wasn’t true. Nezumi didn’t _have_ to follow him – he wanted to. It was a choice, and it was Nezumi’s choice, and that made a difference. Nezumi wasn’t used to having choices in his life, but now he did, and he would choose to go wherever Shion went.

            But Shion didn’t have to know that. Not yet, at least.

 

_four years ago_

They’d be turning eighteen in three days, and Nezumi decided that if Shion didn’t ask, Nezumi would.

            He wouldn’t do it the way Shion would. He wouldn’t say something stupid like, _I want you to kiss me,_ or in this case, _I want you to have sex with me._

            He’d be romantic about it, the way Shion seemed utterly incapable. He wouldn’t be cliché, but he’d do it right. In a way that would make Shion’s cheeks turn pink. In a way that would make Shion grin his stupid grin. In a way that would make Shion wonder why they hadn’t had sex earlier, the same way Nezumi wondered.

            Nezumi had thought about having sex with Shion often, and he felt more than prepared for it, so now he thought about afterward. What would happen next. Waking up with Shion beside him, but instead of half a foot away from him on the bed, Shion would be right there, his skin against Nezumi’s, bare and warm and radiating heat from sleep. And Nezumi would wake first, would look at Shion and feel only right because he had woken beside Shion countless times, and it was the way he was supposed to wake, but now it would be better because there’d be no space between them, now it would be better because they’d have had sex the night before, now it would be better because it wouldn’t be in Nezumi’s head, it’d be real.

            And even when the moment passed, Nezumi would have the memory forever, and he’d have Shion forever too.

 

_present_

When Nezumi woke, he only had his eyes open for a second before he was told to close them.

            “Close your eyes.”

            Shion’s voice tightened Nezumi’s chest in an instant, and he was immediately fighting to breathe.

            “I know it hurts that I’m here. I only came to tell you that I think you should do the cure.”

            “It’s not up to you,” Nezumi managed, and the rasp of his whisper didn’t sound at all like his own voice.

            “You can’t die again, Nezumi.”

            “I can do whatever I want.”

            “How can you want this?” Shion shouted, his voice loud, and Nezumi tightened his hands around the blanket over his shoulders. He thought he was still on Shion’s couch, but he couldn’t be sure. “We were supposed to have months, Nezumi, that’s how amoritis works! You were supposed to still be alive for months, but you’re not going to make it another week! We were supposed to have months to be together, we were supposed to have months,” Shion kept insisting, and his voice had broken, and Nezumi wished the pain of hearing Shion cry wasn’t enough to make him black out again so that he could remind Shion –

            _We had years, Your Majesty, remember?_

*


	9. Chapter 9

_present_

The amoritis cure facility in Japan was located in Tokyo, and so it was there that Nezumi, Karan, and Safu headed to on the train, Safu handing Nezumi tissues every so often to wipe at the blood coming out of his ears and his nose and halfway through the ride, the corners of his eyes.

            At first, Nezumi thought he was crying from the pain that wracked through him like a heartbeat, but when he wiped his face, his hand came away with blood, and when he blinked, his vision was blurred in a film of dark pink.

            “Nezumi,” Safu said quietly, while Nezumi pressed a tissue to his eyes and took it away, looked at the blood that stained it.

            “It’s fine,” he breathed.

            “It’ll be over soon,” Safu said weakly, and Nezumi closed his eyes. 

            He didn’t want to forget. He would take the pain that made him want to scream over forgetting. He would take death over forgetting.

            But if he died, Shion would blame himself, and Nezumi wouldn’t take that.

            A streak of warmth slid down his cheek, and Nezumi wasn’t sure it if was a tear or blood or some terrible mixture of both.

*

Nezumi passed out on the train and woke at the facility. He was not wearing his clothing, but a white gown, and he was hooked up to a heart monitor in a white room. There was something on his head, and Nezumi lifted his hand, felt at a strange netting, like a thick-roped hairnet.

            “Leave that, hon. It’s to monitor your brain waves after they inject you with the cure.”

            Nezumi dropped his hand. He was lying on what seemed to be a hospital bed and sat up.

            “Are you in pain?” Karan asked. She stood beside the bed and looked terrified.

            “No,” Nezumi lied.

            “They needed you to be awake to inject the cure. I’ll go get the doctor now,” Karan said, her voice shaking, and then she was gone from Nezumi’s side.

            He lifted his hand again in her absence and touched the netting on his head, then dropped his hand again and waited.

*

The cure was a black liquid.

            “Why is it black?” Nezumi asked, looking at the syringe.

            “That’s just a chemical property,” the woman holding the syringe said. She wore a lab coat and had told Nezumi her name, but Nezumi couldn’t remember it, hadn’t been listening to it in the first place.

            “Which chemical?”

            “Nezumi,” Safu said quietly. She stood on one side of his bed, and Karan stood on the other. Once the woman injected the black liquid, Nezumi wouldn’t have any idea who they were.

            “Shion would know,” Nezumi said, and when he said Shion’s name, his skin seared as if he was being burned, and he knew what it felt like to burn, he knew what it felt like to have his skin eaten by flame, but all that he knew wasn’t as bad as it felt now.

            He gasped and curled in on himself.

            “Honey,” Karan said softly, and Nezumi thought about how he wouldn’t remember her, he’d have no idea who she was after the cure.

            “I don’t want to do it. I changed my mind,” Nezumi whispered into his knees.

            “You signed the waiver,” Safu said.

            “Fuck the waiver.”

            “Nezumi, listen to me. We’re your family. We’re not going to leave you. You won’t remember us, but we’ll remember you, and we’ll stay with you, you’re not going to lose us,” Karan insisted.

            Nezumi wanted the pain. He could handle it. He liked it. He could survive like this, gasping for breath, passing out when it got to be too much, waking again to suffer it all over.

            It was better than nothing, and all he’d have after the cure would be nothing.

            “How long does it take to work?” Safu asked.

            “After the injection, it takes twenty-four hours for all episodic memory to be erased.”

            At the word _episodic_ , Nezumi felt as if he’d been shot. A sound escaped his lips that he tried to muffle against his knees.

            “He might not make it twenty-four hours.”

            “Safu.”

            “Karan, look at him! Nezumi, stop being so stupid and let her inject the cure!”

            Nezumi wanted to remind Safu that she didn’t even believe in this cure. That she didn’t even believe in amoritis. That she thought it was all psychological – couldn’t she remember that?

            Nezumi remembered. He remembered everything, he wanted to remember everything.

            “Nezumi, honey, it’s going to be okay. This is what’s best, I promise, I will only ever ask you to do what’s best for you. Do you trust me?”

            _You can always trust me to catch you, Nezumi._

            Nezumi felt his head swimming, knew he was going to pass out, forced himself to sit up so that he could look at the woman holding the syringe and speak.

            “Do it now,” he managed, and she did not hesitate, stuck the syringe in his arm and pushed down the plunger hardly a moment before Nezumi lost consciousness completely.

 

_thirteen years ago_

Nezumi watched as the doctor wiped a square of his skin with wet cotton before holding up her syringe.

            “You don’t look scared,” she said.

            “I’m not,” Nezumi replied.

            “He’s very brave,” Karan said, from where she sat on one of the chairs against the wall of the doctor’s office.

            Nezumi swung his legs. The sheet of paper spread over his chair crinkled beneath him.

            “Can I inject him?”

            Nezumi glanced at Shion, who was standing too close to him, staring at the syringe.

            The doctor laughed. “Maybe next time.”        

            “I want to be the one to cure him,” Shion said.

            Nezumi rolled his eyes. “I’m not sick, idiot.”

            “Language, Nezumi.”

            “Sorry, Karan.”

            “It’s a vaccine. To prevent Nezumi from getting sick, but not necessarily to cure him,” the doctor explained, and Shion nodded his head quickly.

            “That’s what I meant. I want to be the one to prevent him from getting sick.”

            “Don’t listen to him, he’s always talking nonsense,” Nezumi told the doctor.

            “Is he your brother?” the doctor asked.

            Nezumi crinkled his nose. “No.”

            “We’re best friends,” Shion piped up.

            “Who told you that?” Nezumi countered.

            “Ready?” the doctor asked.

            Nezumi nodded, and she slid the syringe in his arm, and he didn’t even wince.

            Fifteen minutes later, he and Shion stood beside Karan’s car licking their lollipops while Karan searched in her purse for the car keys.

            “Does it hurt?” Shion asked, and Nezumi glanced down at his band-aid.

            “No.”

            “I always think it hurts. I hate shots.”

            “They’re not so bad.”

            Shion shrugged. “Next time I get a shot, you’ll be with me, so I guess I won’t mind so much.”

            Nezumi stuck his lollipop between his teeth and cheek. Sometimes, he thought, Shion said the oddest things, but Nezumi had learned, in the year since he’d known the kid, that it was best to just accept Shion’s nonsense.

            “What color is my tongue?” Shion asked, sticking his tongue out, and it was bright red.

            “Red.”

            Shion grinned, and the car doors clicked open.

            “Okay, boys, get in, let’s go home,” Karan said.

            Nezumi slid into the backseat beside Shion. He forgot to remind Karan, as he usually did, that the bakery was not his home.

 

_eight years ago_

They were assigned to make family trees in social studies, and Nezumi had already decided to skip the assignment when Shion brought out the poster boards.

            “My mom and I got one for you too,” he said, producing next a pencil case full of markers and sitting cross-legged beside Nezumi.

            They were in Shion’s room on the floor working on homework, as they usually were any given day after school when the weather was too terrible to play outside.

            Nezumi didn’t put down _To Kill a Mockingbird._ “Don’t need one.”

            “It’s for your family tree.”

            “I know what it’s for.”

            “The teacher said we should do them on poster boards.”

            “I know what she said.”

            “Do you have your own?”

            Nezumi exhaled hard, blowing his bangs up from his forehead. “Can you shut up? I’m trying to read.”

            “You read that already.”

            “Are you stalking me or something? I’m going to go to the orphanage if you keep bothering me.”

            Shion frowned. “I’m not bothering you, I’m talking to you.”

            “Is there a difference?” Nezumi muttered.

            Shion just looked at Nezumi in his careful way – too careful for a fourteen-year-old, and Nezumi hated that he had to wonder what Shion could be thinking without being able to read it on his face, but he didn’t have to wonder for long. “You’ve never told me about your family. It makes sense that you wouldn’t want to tell the class.”

            “Don’t analyze me,” Nezumi snapped, standing up, deciding it was time to leave.

            “I’m not analyzing you,” Shion said, scrambling up as well. “You can use my family for your tree if you want.”

            Nezumi glared. “I have my own.”

            “I know that,” Shion said quickly. “But if you want to keep them to yourself, then you can use mine.”

            _Keep them to yourself._

            Nezumi turned the words over in his head, tried to make sense of them, and while he did so, Shion smiled a small smile.

            “I know you like your secrets,” he said, while Nezumi examined his smile from the corners of his eyes.

            “I’m doing my tree on my own family.”

            Shion’s smile grew. “Good. I can’t wait to learn about them.”

            Nezumi crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe I won’t do the project after all if you’re going to be so smug about it.”

            Shion shrugged. “It’s up to you. But I think you should, not for the class, but for yourself. If you don’t remember them every once in a while, you’ll forget them.”

            “That’s the stupidest sentence anyone has ever spoken,” Nezumi snapped.

            “I’m sure I’ll say something you think is stupider tomorrow,” Shion said happily, sitting down again, and Nezumi watched him reach out for his markers, choose one carefully, start to draw a tree on his poster board.

            After Shion finished the trunk and two branches, Nezumi sat slowly down beside him, pulled the second poster board closer to himself, stole the brown marker from Shion.

            “Hey!”

            “You’re not supposed to draw an actual tree.”

            “I want to,” Shion said, reaching over Nezumi for the marker, but Nezumi held it up high, out of Shion’s reach.

            “Your trunk is lopsided anyway.”

            Shion stopped stretching for the marker. “Draw a better one then,” he challenged, so Nezumi lowered the marker, examined his poster board, and set out to draw a better tree than Shion’s.

 

_six years ago_

Nezumi walked into the bathroom to find Safu crying.

            “Oh, shit, sorry,” he muttered, backing out while Safu quickly wiped at her face.

            “No, no, it’s fine, I’m sorry,” she said, sniffling loudly, and Nezumi paused as he was about to close the door.

            He hesitated for a second, then stepped back into the bathroom, pulling the door closed behind him and looking at Safu, who stared down at the sink.

            “You can go,” she said.

            “I’ll go if you want me too. But if you want to talk about it, we can.”

            “It’s nothing.”

            “Doesn’t look like nothing.”

            “Nezumi,” Safu snapped, then sighed. “Fine, it’s not nothing. Happy?”

            Nezumi stepped closer to her, leaned against the side of the sink. “Not particularly. I wanted to pee, but now I have to deal with you crying in Shion’s bathroom.”

            Safu laughed. “How terrible for you.”

            “Very inconvenient. You could find less selfish places to cry that wouldn’t impede on my bladder.”

            “I did it on purpose,” Safu said, smiling, and Nezumi hesitated, then reached out, wiped her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

            “Want to tell me what’s wrong or would you prefer to keep it bottled up inside?”

            “I’m still deciding,” Safu said, and Nezumi nodded.

            “Okay.”

            “You won’t tell Shion,” she said, after a moment, and Nezumi nodded again.

            “I won’t.”

            “You tell him everything.”

            “Well, I certainly don’t do that.”

            Safu looked at Nezumi carefully, then nodded once. “I suppose you don’t,” she said, and Nezumi didn’t bother asking her what she meant by that.

            Safu took a deep breath, then let it out in a rush. She reached up, tucked her hair behind her ears.

            “It’s really stupid.”

            “I’m sure it is,” Nezumi said.

            “I didn’t realize it bothered me. It doesn’t bother me. But I’m crying about it, which means on some level – probably unconscious – it must have bothered me to cause a spike in my hormones that would lead to a release of tears.”

            “Try not to analyze it and get to the point,” Nezumi suggested.

            Safu glared. “Don’t be annoying, Nezumi, you’re comforting me, remember?”

            “Sure,” Nezumi agreed, feeling his lips twitch up.

            Safu looked away from him, glanced at herself in the mirror, and Nezumi turned so he could look at her reflection as well.

            She looked older. Nezumi couldn’t remember when they’d grown out of being kids.

            “I was in the bathroom at school, and some girls came in and were saying things about me.”

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “What kinds of things?”

            “Stupid things.”

            “About you?”

            Safu’s smile was watery and loose. “I don’t have many friends, if you haven’t noticed. Girls think I’m odd. Boys too.”

            “You are odd.”

            Safu looked away from her reflection to Nezumi, and Nezumi looked back at her. “I don’t need other friends than you and Shion, and I definitely don’t want any. Which is why this is a stupid thing to unconsciously bother me.”

            “I agree. It’s very stupid.”

            “Nezumi, can I make a suggestion? You should try to validate my emotions. That’s how normal people comfort other people.”

            Nezumi grinned. “Maybe I’m not normal either. Maybe I’m odd too.”

            At this, Safu smiled. “Maybe,” she conceded.

            “Those girls are dumb.”

            “I agree.”

            “Sorry your unconscious was bothered.”

            “Me too,” Safu said, and Nezumi considered her wet cheeks, her shining eyes, then reached out, stepped forward, hugged her, and Safu laughed in his arms. “You’re taking it too far, please let go of me.”

            “This is how normal people comfort other people,” Nezumi objected.

            “We’re not normal, remember?”

            Nezumi let go of her, and Safu wiped at her face again, smiled up at him still. There was a tear caught in her eyelashes and the tip of her nose was pink, but otherwise, Nezumi thought she looked happy, and Nezumi wondered for a moment if her happiness could be because of him.

            “Yeah,” Nezumi said. “I remember.”

 

_nine years ago_

It was the night of parent-teacher conferences at school, and Nezumi’s social worker from the orphanage had gone as his parent as she always did for his parent-teacher conferences.

            Nezumi was in Shion’s room, where they were in the middle of their third game of chess when Karan’s voice carried up the stairs –

            “Boys, I’m home!”

            “Coming!” Shion called, then looked at Nezumi. “Shall we call it a tie?”

            “It’s not a tie. I’m winning.”

            “Let’s resume it later, then.”

            “There’s no point to that. Just admit you lost.”

            “I didn’t lose.”

            “Boys, please come downstairs!” Karan called.

            “It’s a tie,” Shion said, standing up and going to his door, and Nezumi followed him out his door and to the stairs.

            “I won.”

            “It’s a tie.”

            “I won.”

            “It’s a tie.”

            “I won.”

            “Nezumi, I want to talk with you,” Karan said, when they’d clambered into the kitchen.

            Nezumi glanced at Shion, who glanced back at him, before they both looked at Karan again.

            “What did I do?”

            “It’s what you didn’t do. I found out tonight that you haven’t been doing your homework,” Karan said, her arms crossed over her chest.

            Nezumi crossed his arms over his chest as well. “Why did the teacher tell you that? You’re not my legal guardian, that stuff is confidential.”

            “Parent-teacher conferences are not confidential. And your teacher didn’t tell me, your social worker did.”

            “I told him to do his homework,” Shion piped up.

            “Shut up,” Nezumi said, jamming his elbow into Shion’s side.

            “Language, Nezumi.”

            “Sorry, Karan,” Nezumi mumbled, then spoke more clearly, lifting his chin. “But I still don’t see how it’s your business whether I do my homework. Do you care if the other kids in the class aren’t doing their homework?”

            “Why should I care about the other kids, Nezumi?” Karan asked, in that way she asked Nezumi questions when she was testing him on ingredients for her pastries.

            _What’s missing from the batter in this flan, Nezumi?_

            “Why should you care about me?” Nezumi countered, and Karan’s eyebrows creased before she shook her head. Her expression went completely blank in a way Nezumi had never seen it before.

            “You know what? You’re right, Nezumi. How about this? I’ll stop caring about you. Is that going to make you happy?” Karan asked, her voice completely normal, like she was asking any other question.

            Nezumi blinked, felt an odd swooping from his chest to his stomach.

            “Mom,” Shion said slowly, quietly.

            “What about you, Shion? Do you think I should care about Nezumi when he insists I have no reason to? I don’t see the point to it. Do you?”

            “Fine, don’t care,” Nezumi snapped, turning away from her.

            “Nezumi, wait!” Shion called, and Nezumi heard Shion say as he left the kitchen – “Mom, what are you doing?”

            “I’m not doing anything.”

            “Well, you’re supposed to!” Shion yelled, and then Shion was beside Nezumi, who was at the bakery door, his hand on the handle. “Don’t go. You were going to sleep over tonight, remember?”

            “Your mom doesn’t want me to.”

            “Of course she does, she’s doing a weird mind game. As soon as you leave, she’ll come after you.”

            “Oh yeah? Let’s find out,” Nezumi countered, and he opened the bakery door, stepped out into the cold, the wind tossing his hair over his face the moment he was out of the shelter of the bakery.

            He stood outside and looked at Shion, who stood inside, and they both waited in the silence that ensued.

            “See?” Nezumi said, after a minute, his voice hitching as the wind stole it from his lips.

            “Mom, Nezumi’s leaving!” Shion called, and they waited again until –

            “Let him!”

            Shion blinked at Nezumi, who blinked back.

            “She didn’t mean that,” Shion said.

            “Yes, she did,” Nezumi said, and his voice was hard, and he stepped away from the bakery, the warmth of it, the light of it, the shelter of it, kept stepping away and watching Shion get smaller and smaller in the doorway before Nezumi turned around, started the walk back to the orphanage.

            He was climbing the steps of the orphanage, pushing his hair out of his face and his tears out of his eyes, and when he looked up, intending to reach out to open the orphanage doors, Karan stood in front of them.

            Nezumi leaped back. “How did you get here?” he asked, his heart in this throat.

            The wind blew Karan’s hair – free from its bun – wildly around her face. Nezumi couldn’t see Karan’s expression behind the strands of it.

            “How could you believe me?” Karan asked, her voice low underneath the rush of the wind, and Nezumi stared at her, thought he knew what she’d asked, but he must have heard wrong.

            “What?”

            “How could you think I could stop caring about you, Nezumi? How can you not understand? What have I done to make you not understand?” Karan asked, and there was an odd desperation in her voice that pulled at Nezumi’s chest.

            He shook his head. “I don’t – I don’t know what you’re – ”

            “There will never be a day when I don’t love you, and there is nothing at all you can do to change that, and if you don’t understand that even now, I must be doing something wrong, so tell me what it is, Nezumi.”       

            Karan had reached out, and her grip was tight around the tops of both of Nezumi’s arms, and her fingers dug into his skin and hurt.

            “Karan – ”

            “I love you so much it hurts me, Nezumi, every time you leave the bakery and come to this orphanage. I wish you’d spend every night with us, but I understand that you feel you can’t do that, I understand you don’t want me to adopt you, I understand you miss your family and that in your eyes letting Shion and I be yours would be to betray to them. I don’t agree with you, but I promise I understand you, Nezumi, honey, I do, I really do. And you’re only thirteen years old, you’ve grown so much, but you’re still just a boy, and this is so much to put on you, but I need you to understand me too.”

            Nezumi felt his chest squeeze as the wind tugged his bangs from his eyes, the pushed them back over, and he wished the wind would lay them flat over his face so Karan couldn’t see his expression at all.

            “It hurts me that you don’t understand me. It hurts me that you don’t understand who you are to me.”

            “I’m sorry,” Nezumi managed, and when he blinked, he felt a tear slip out the corner of his eye, wanted to lift his hand to wipe it but couldn’t, as Karan still gripped his arms tightly.

            “I don’t want you to be sorry, honey. I don’t want you to feel bad. I just want you to understand. Do you? Do you understand that I love you so much it shouldn’t be possible? Do you understand that you’re not just a boy who came into my bakery four years ago? Do you understand that you will always be in my life, and I will always be in yours, and there is nothing you can do about that? Do you understand?”

            Nezumi nodded, his throat too thick to speak, so he only mouthed the words. _I understand._

            “Oh, hon. I know this is a lot. I don’t want to scare you. It’s just so important to me that you know how much you are loved. I only need you to understand that this is not temporary, this is not any less real than any parent loves their child. Shion and I are your family, wherever you live, wherever you sleep at night, whether it’s here or the bakery, we are your home. You know that, honey, right?”

            Nezumi took a breath. He nodded. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I know.”

            Karan let go of his arms and cupped her hand over his cheek, her skin warm while the wind tugged them both, pulled them apart and pushed them together.

            “I worry, Nezumi, that you’ll never know what I feel for you.”

            Nezumi said nothing to this. He let Karan tuck his hair behind his ears, only so that the wind could release it back the second Karan took her hand away.

            He let Karan hug him, let himself sink into the familiarity of her body, let her comb her fingers briefly through his hair behind letting him go.

            “Will you come back to the bakery for the night? I know Shion wants you to.”

            Nezumi sniffed and glanced at the orphanage doors. “Maybe I’ll stay here tonight.”

            Karan was quiet for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, honey. I’ll see you tomorrow morning then, right?”

            “Okay.”

            “Goodnight, Nezumi.”

            Nezumi stepped around her, opened the orphanage door, glanced back to see that Karan hadn’t moved.

            “Promise me something, honey. You’ll always remember who you are to me, right, Nezumi?”

            “I’ll remember,” Nezumi promised, and he thought, just before the door closed, that on Karan’s face there was a desperate relief.

 

_seven years ago_

It was day after they kissed, and Nezumi was waiting to kiss Shion again.

            They were walking home from school, Shion having just finished rambling about some stupid thing and taking a break before, doubtlessly, embarking just as enthusiastically on another topic.

            Nezumi decided to stop the process before it could continue. “Hey, Your Majesty,” he said, and Shion turned to look at him, sunlight coating his skin and casting the shadows of his eyelashes over his cheeks.

            Nezumi forgot what he was going to say. Found himself looking at Shion’s lips, watching when they moved.

            “What?” Shion was asking.

            Nezumi still said nothing. He didn’t want to be the one to do it. He wanted Shion to, even though he knew Shion wouldn’t.

            Even though he’d known the moment after the kiss that nothing had changed. Even though he knew that Shion didn’t want anything to change – he’d just wanted a first kiss, and that was it, not a second, not a third, not a fourth, not enough that they’d lose count completely despite their best efforts to keep track.

            “What is it, Nezumi?” Shion asked, and they’d stopped walking. Nezumi didn’t know who stopped first, but it didn’t matter – when one stopped, so would the other.

            “Nothing,” he said.

            They were freshly fifteen and Nezumi knew he was in love and he didn’t know when it’d happened or why – definitely not _how_ , not with this boy, insane Shion, annoying Shion, genius Shion, talkative Shion, naïve Shion, stupid Shion, only Shion.

            Or maybe Nezumi didn’t know he was in love at that moment. Maybe he was remembering it wrong, and maybe he wouldn’t realize until later, or maybe he’d known it since the beginning.

            Nezumi couldn’t remember the exact date, but the date didn’t matter. What mattered were the years, and Nezumi wouldn’t forget those, would never forget those.

 

_present_

Nezumi woke and understood he was in some sort of hospital, as the room was white and he was hooked up to a heart monitor and there was some sort of netting on his head and he was in a cot with white sheets and he wore a white gown.

            He reached up and pulled at the netting on his head, then took it off, and a machine started beeping quickly beside him.

            “Oh, you’re awake.”

            There was a woman sitting slumped on a chair against the wall, but she sat up, pushed loose strands of her hair off her face and walked quickly to Nezumi’s bed.

            “Honey. How do you feel?”

            _Honey._

            Nezumi examined the woman. She looked worn and exhausted and concerned, but there was a kindness to her that Nezumi liked, that made him feel safe despite not knowing who she was or where they were or what was wrong with him that had him in a hospital bed with an odd net on his head.

            “I feel okay. Normal, I think,” he said, to answer her question.

            Her eyes were slipping quickly over his face, as if she was reading him, and Nezumi thought about asking who she was, but then he thought that judging from the _Honey,_ he was supposed to know who she was, and he wondered why he didn’t.

            “Let me get the doctor and let her know you’re awake, all right?” the woman asked, and Nezumi nodded because it felt rude to argue and ruder to ask her to identify herself.

            The woman left, and Nezumi pushed himself so that he was sitting up. He crossed his legs and peered under his gown, tried to identify the source of whatever injury had gotten him into the hospital. He closed his eyes and tried to decide if he was in any pain, but couldn’t feel anything but slightly cold, and he opened his eyes to note the goosebumps prickling his arms.

            He glanced at the net on the bed that he’d pulled off his head and picked it up, was touching the different parts of it carefully and trying to figure out its purpose when the woman was back, followed by another woman, this one younger and in a lab coat and seeming much more awake and composed and crisp. This was the doctor, Nezumi could tell.

            “Before we start, can you tell me what your name is?” the doctor asked, which Nezumi thought was an odd question – if he was her patient, shouldn’t she know?

            But then, maybe she was just assigned to him, as Nezumi didn’t know who she was either, and realized they had probably never met.

            “I’m Nezumi,” Nezumi said.

            “Great, Nezumi. Do you mind if we put this back on you?” the doctor said, coming beside the bed and taking the net from Nezumi’s fingers.

            “What is it?”

            “It tracks your brain waves.”

            “Is there something wrong with my brain?”

            The doctor pulled the net back over Nezumi’s head, situating it gently. “I don’t believe so, but the net will let us know if something is. Do you know what you’re here for?”

            “Why I’m in the hospital?” Nezumi asked, looking around the room again, thinking maybe there’d be some sort of sign.

            “It’s not a hospital, it’s a facility. We administer a particular type of cure.”

            “A cure?”

            “That’s right. Nezumi, can you look at my nose?” the doctor asked, and she pointed to her nose while she fished a flashlight out of her lab coat pocket and flashed it quickly across Nezumi’s eyes.

            Nezumi watched her nose. He tried to think about what she was saying about a cure, but then she was speaking again, and he was distracted.

            “My name is Dr. Akari. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

            “Okay.”

            Dr. Akari clicked off her flashlight and pocketed it again. “How old are you, Nezumi?”

            Nezumi blinked at her, then behind her, where the kind woman stood at the foot of his bed. “I don’t – I’m not sure,” he said, and he didn’t know why he wasn’t sure how old he was. He wanted to ask the doctor, but she was already onto her next question.

            “That’s okay. What is seven times three?”

             “Twenty-one.”

             “What language are we speaking?”

             “Japanese.”

             “Great. Can you tell me the last thing you remember?”

            Nezumi squinted. Looked again at the woman at the foot of the bed, and she looked at him in a way he didn’t understand, in a way that was too much, overwhelming in some strange way, so he looked back at Dr. Akari, who felt safer to look at.

            “I woke up.”

            “Before that.”

            “I guess I was taken to the hospital,” Nezumi hedged.

            “I don’t want you to make up a memory. If you don’t remember, that’s completely fine. Just tell me so.”

            Nezumi took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I don’t remember.”

            “Do you have any memories, Nezumi?”

            Nezumi lifted his hand, pulled at the net on his head.

            “Please don’t do that.”

            “Sorry,” he mumbled, dropping his hand. “I don’t think – I don’t know – Why can’t I remember anything?”

            “You can remember. You knew basic math, you know what language you’re speaking, you certainly know how to speak and the social cues to answer the questions you’re asked and to wait until someone addresses you to speak without interrupting them. You also know how to make observations – you assumed we were in a hospital using your knowledge of what a hospital room looks like. Right?”

            Nezumi rubbed his palms on his knees over the sheet. “I guess so.”

            “These are general knowledge memories, Nezumi. It’s commonly called semantic memory. These are memories of facts, basic culture, and social norms that have been so engrained in you that they are a different part of your brain than the knowledge of your experiences. Your name, too, is part of semantic knowledge, because your name is so closely a part of you understanding of how the world operates, and it is this knowledge you’ve retained. My name, however, you did not know until I told you. Right?”

            Nezumi nodded. He thought the doctor was speaking very fast, and wished she would slow down, wished she would give him a chance to understand.

            “I told you my name before, but that information was logged as episodic memory, and therefore was erased after the administration of cure.”

            “The cure?” Nezumi asked, uncertain. “Am I sick?”  

            Dr. Akari smiled. “No, Nezumi. You’re cured, remember?”

            At the sound of a stifled sob, Nezumi looked away from the doctor at the woman by the foot of his bed. Her hand was over her lips and her cheeks were wet, and then Dr. Akari was beside her.

            “Would you like to step out for a moment?” Dr. Akari asked quietly.

            The woman shook her head. “I want to stay with him.”

            “Perhaps during the explanation, it might be easier if you – ”

            “I have to stay with him!” the woman objected, dropping her hand from her lips, then looking at Nezumi, who blinked back.

            He swallowed. He didn’t know this woman. He tried to put it together in his head. He didn’t know her because his memories had been erased. His memory had been erased as part of a cure for something.

            “Do you know me?” he asked her, even though he could tell she did, even though she’d called him _Honey._

            The woman just looked at him, and then she was crying again abruptly, and Dr. Akari hugged her, let the woman cry into her shoulder while Nezumi tried to look away but couldn’t.

            “I’m sorry,” he managed, watching the woman sob and feeling a helplessness at this stranger crying at the foot of his bed.

            The woman cried more loudly, and Nezumi wondered if her sadness was his own fault, wondered what he had done to her that he could not remember.

*


	10. Chapter 10

_present_

After the woman was taken out of Nezumi’s room, Dr. Akari returned.

            “Do you know what amoritis is?” she asked.

            “Yeah. Everyone does,” Nezumi replied.

            “Thirteen months ago, a cure was developed for those who fell in love with amoritis hosts. The cure erases episodic memory so those who are in love forget all memories of the host, which of course means the love they felt is gone, and this allows them to survive.”

            Nezumi looked down at the bedsheet spread over his lap and tried to understand. “I was in love with an amoritis host?”

            “Yes, you were.”

            “And I was dying?”

            “You were.”

            “But now I’m not?”

            “Now you’re not,” Dr. Akari confirmed, smiling gently.

            Nezumi glanced at the door of his room, from which the woman had disappeared. “That woman…”

            “She doesn’t have amoritis,” Dr. Akari reminded, and Nezumi nodded. Of course she didn’t. Amoritis hosts had white hair and red eyes and raised pink scars.

            “What about my other memories? The ones not about the amoritis host?”

            “Unfortunately, those are gone too. There’s no way to target specific memories. The best we could do is keep your semantic memories intact while erasing episodic memories. I know this will be a strange transition, but this is really what’s best for you. You’re alive, right?” the doctor asked, and Nezumi nodded.

            He was certainly alive. He remembered nothing, and felt completely lost, but he was alive, and he supposed that must have been the most important thing in his own opinion if he’d chosen to get this cure in the first place.

            “This is a good thing, Nezumi,” Dr. Akari said, and Nezumi had no reason not to trust her.

            “Okay,” he agreed.

 

_four years ago_

Ten days before Shion turned eighteen, he and Nezumi walked to school for the first day of their last year of high school.

            Nezumi was exhausted. “Let’s skip school.”

            “It’s the first day.”

            “I need to go back to sleep. The sun isn’t even up,” Nezumi complained.

            “Yes, it is,” Shion said, and Nezumi glared at him.

            Early morning sunlight fell over Shion’s face, glinted in his eyes so that they were squinted as he looked at Nezumi.

            “You should cherish this moment. In a year, everything will be different,” Shion said.

            “It better be,” Nezumi muttered, hiking his backpack up his shoulders.

            Shion’s shoulder bumped his. “It isn’t so bad right now,” he said.

            Nezumi didn’t reply. It was too early for conversation, but of course, Shion didn’t seem to be thinking along the same lines.

            “I think this year is going to be incredible,” Shion was saying.

            Nezumi yawned and looked at him again, examined the familiarity of Shion’s profile. “If you say so, Your Majesty.”

 

_present_

After Dr. Akari left the room, the woman returned.

            Her face was pink, but she was no longer crying. She stood next to the side of Nezumi’s bed, reached out and took his hand in hers, and Nezumi let her.

            “Nezumi,” she said, and she didn’t say anything else.

            Nezumi didn’t know if he was allowed to ask her who she was. He didn’t want her to start crying again, but then she was saying gently –

            “You can ask me anything, honey, it’s all right.”

             – as if she’d read his mind.

            Nezumi took a breath. Thought about the word _honey._ “Okay. Um, who are you?”

            The woman smiled a loose smile. “I’m one of your mothers.”

            Nezumi squinted at her, and she released his hand, raised her own and tucked his hair behind his ears in a gesture he thought might have been familiar if he had any memories to recall.

            “When you were very young, you lost your family in a terrible fire. You had a mother and a father a little sister, and you loved them very much, but after they died, you were alone, and after some reluctance, you let me take care of you.”

            “My family is dead?” Nezumi asked. He waited to feel something about this knowledge.

            “Some of your family is, yes. I’m sorry, honey. But do not for a second think you’re alone. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. My name is Karan.”

            Nezumi took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Okay. Do I call you Karan, or do I call you Mom?”

            The woman laughed, but a tear slipped out the corner of her eye. “I guess that cure really got all of your memories, didn’t it?” she asked softly.

            Nezumi didn’t answer her. He remembered nothing at all, but wished he did, just so he could tell her something, just so he could assure her that he was still hers if she wanted him.

 

_four years ago_

Nine days before Shion turned eighteen, he and Nezumi baked cherry pie in Karan’s kitchen.

            Shion kept sneaking cherries. Nezumi watched Shion lick his thumb, watched his lips turn red.

            If he kissed Shion at that moment, the boy would taste like sweet fruit.

            “Don’t tell Mom,” Shion said, and Nezumi nodded.

            “I won’t.”

 

_present_

The second person Nezumi met was younger, a girl named Safu who had red-rimmed eyes but even so looked extremely composed.

            “I’m Safu,” she’d said, walking briskly through the door after Nezumi ate lunch with Karan. “We’re childhood friends. Best friends. I’m going to give you a brief timeline of your life now. Are you ready?”

            Nezumi had blinked, shaken the hand that she’d extended to him, and shrugged. “I guess so.”

            “Good. Listen closely, I don’t like repeating myself.”

            And then she’d launched into their lives, and Nezumi had listened as closely as he could, noticing especially her hesitations, the spaces where he could tell she was amending their past, and he wondered why she was doing so but didn’t interrupt.

            Safu, he thought, didn’t seem like a girl to be interrupted.

            After a concise overview of his life, she looked at him sternly. “If you need to know anything, ask me. I know everything about you.”

            Nezumi rubbed the back of his neck, then asked what he’d been wondering. “Did you know the amoritis host that I was in love with?” he asked, and Safu stared at him.

            “Yes. I know him.”

            _Him._ Nezumi accepted the new information with some relief. He liked that this host was a man. That felt right.

            “What’s his name?”

            Safu looked at Nezumi for a long moment. “Do you want to meet him?” she asked, after half a minute. “He’s here.”

            Nezumi glanced at Karan, who sat where she’d been sitting when Nezumi first woke. Nezumi had asked her to stay with him, and she’d agreed.

            “Safu,” Karan said.    

            “If he falls in love again, they can just inject him again with the cure,” Safu said.

            Karan frowned. “Don’t say something like that.”

            “What? I’m kidding anyway, he’s not going to fall in love, this isn’t our Nezumi, this is a different version of him without any memories. It’s just a man who looks like Nezumi, but he really isn’t.”

            “Safu!” Karan chastised.

            “I’m not the same?” Nezumi asked, and Safu looked at him evenly.

            “Not at all,” she said, and Nezumi raveled his hands together.

            “Does that mean you don’t like me?”

            “I don’t know you,” Safu said simply.

            “Safu!” Karan said, standing now, coming over to the side of Nezumi’s bed. “Don’t listen to her.”

            “I’m not going to lie to him.”

            “It’s okay,” Nezumi said weakly. “I don’t know her either.”

            “See? He doesn’t want to be lied to. He never did.”

            “Safu, do you have to be difficult?” Karan asked, her voice strained.

            “I’m not being difficult, I’m being myself. Unless you would rather we were all someone different.”

            “I’m sure I’m not that different,” Nezumi said.

            “And how would you know?” Safu countered.

            “Safu, I think you need to step out. Get some air,” Karan said sternly.

            “I don’t need air. I’ll go get Shion.”

            “You’re not getting Shion.”

            “Shion?” Nezumi asked, and both Karan and Safu stopped arguing to look at him.

            “He’s the amoritis host you used to love,” Safu said, after a moment.

            “Shion,” Nezumi repeated slowly, trying out the name.

            “Shion doesn’t think it’s a good idea to see Nezumi right now,” Karan said, looking back at Safu. “And I agree with him.”

            “What’s he so scared of? That Nezumi will fall for him again? He’s so dumb sometimes, Nezumi doesn’t even know himself, he’s not going to be falling in love with anybody. He doesn’t even know what love is.”

            “Actually, knowing how to love someone is probably a semantic memory thing. General knowledge,” Nezumi cut in, and Safu rolled her eyes.

            “See? The real Nezumi would never say something like that.”

            “Safu, please get some air. I know this is difficult, but you’re taking it out on Nezumi – ”

            “That’s not Nezumi!” Safu shouted.

            “Don’t you dare say that!” Karan shouted back, and Safu threw her hands up, then stalked out of the room.

            Nezumi watched the door slam, then glanced at Karan, who had a hand over her eyes.

            “I’m sorry I’m not who you remember,” he said quietly, and Karan shook her head, dropped her hand from her eyes.

            “You’re not doing anything wrong, honey. Safu is just…not being very understanding.”

            “Do you think I’m not the real me?” Nezumi asked, hesitant, and Karan looked at him sadly.

            “Oh, honey,” she said, tucking his hair behind his ears, but she didn’t answer his question, and Nezumi still had his semantic memory, still understood social cues, still understood what Karan’s silence meant.

 

_four years ago_

Eight days before Shion turned eighteen, he gave Nezumi a haircut.

            “Not too short,” Nezumi warned.

            “Stop saying that.”

            “I’m serious. Just the split ends, that’s it. No more than an inch.”

            “I know, I know.”

            Shion walked around Nezumi, who sat on a stool outside the bakery. Shion crouched in front of him, held clumps of Nezumi’s hair out straight, measuring both sides against each other.

            “I think it’s lopsided,” Shion said, wrinkling his nose.

            If Nezumi leaned forward just an inch, he could kiss Shion right there. Outside the bakery with summer giving way to fall, the leaves slipping off from trees, fluttering down to be whisked away by wind on the sidewalk just like the ends of Nezumi’s hair.

 

_present_

It was policy for those injected with the cure to remain in the research facility with nets over their heads monitoring their brain waves for three days after the injection to make sure there were no adverse effects.

            It was the second day when Nezumi woke to shouts outside his room. He recognized one of the voices – Safu.

            She hadn’t returned after storming out the afternoon before, which Nezumi hadn’t necessarily minded. He needed a break from her. On one hand, he liked her honesty, liked that he could trust someone not to lie to him just to comfort him, but on the other hand, he was scared of her.

            She did not seem to care about hurting him. She did not seem to care about him at all. Nezumi knew what she cared about was who he’d been before the injection of the cure, and he wasn’t sure that he liked that she was a constant reminder that he’d previously been someone else entirely.

            Karan was a much more comforting presence, and Nezumi glanced reflexively to the chair at the side of his room, saw that Karan was awake as well and sitting up, her face turned towards the door so that Nezumi couldn’t see her expression.

            “You came all the way here, that means you want to see him!”

            “Safu, why are you being like this?”

            “Just talk to him for a minute, you’ll see, it’s not him, it’s nothing like him, that man in there is a stranger we don’t know – ”

            Karan stood abruptly and went to the door while the shouting continued.

            “I’m not about to risk letting him meet me and putting him in danger again!”

            “If you meet him, you’ll see Nezumi’s gone, and it’s important for you to see that or you’ll never move on with your life!” Safu shouted back, her voice slipping into the room even more loudly while Karan opened the door and walked out of it. Karan shut the door behind her before her voice joined the others.

            “Why are you two shouting about this in the hall right outside Nezumi’s room? Go outside, right now!”

            “Karan, it’s important for Shion to see him,” Safu said, not shouting anymore, but Nezumi still heard her clearly.

            “Shion doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to. Safu, honey, I think you should go, I don’t want you talking to Nezumi anymore right now, this has clearly been a shock for you, and you’re acting terribly.”

            “You want your son to be in love with a man who doesn’t exist? You want your son to waste any more of his life pining for Nezumi when Nezumi’s gone?” Safu demanded.

            “Safu!”

            “I’m not pining,” said the voice Nezumi didn’t know, but Nezumi knew now that this was Shion – this was the man Nezumi had been in love with, this was the man who’d been killing him, this was the man Nezumi had gotten the cure in order to forget.

            “Of course you are, you’ve been lingering outside his room for two days.”

            “Why are you being such an asshole?”

            “I’m not being an asshole, Shion! I’m the only one facing reality here. He’s gone, he’s gone, why can’t the two of you accept that?”

            “Safu, I refuse to engage in this horrible conversation – ”

            “I’m not going to leave him, Karan, if that’s what you’re worried about. I know we’re all he’s got, I’m not going to ditch him just because he isn’t our Nezumi anymore. I know it’s because of us that he’s gone, I know we made him get the cure. But I’m not going to pretend that’s him either. Nezumi would hate that. The real Nezumi would hate it if we lied to him.”

            “Stop saying that, honey, that is the real Nezumi.”

            “I’m leaving.”

            “Shion, just talk to him, he wants to talk to you.”

            “Safu, can you stop telling me what to do? It’s your fault he got the cure!”

            “ _My_ fault? He was going to die otherwise, was that my fault too? I’m not the one he was so completely in love with he couldn’t hear your name without bleeding out his goddamn ears! You did this, Shion, you made him fall in love with you, you took him away from all of us!”

            Nezumi slid lower in the bed. He pulled the blanket up over his head, but could still hear everything – the way Safu’s voice broke while she shouted, the way she started to cry, the silence around her crying that lasted at least a full minute.

            “Yeah. I am fully aware of that,” said the voice Nezumi didn’t know – said Shion – and his words were hollow and quiet, almost quiet enough that Nezumi didn’t hear him.

            “Shion, honey…”

            “Mom, it’s fine. She’s right.”

             “She’s not right. This isn’t your fault, hon, amoritis isn’t anyone’s fault.”

             “It’s really okay, Mom, let me go, I just need to get some air, I’m just going to go outside for a little.”

            “He’s gone, Shion. That’s not him in there,” Safu was insisting, still crying.

            “Safu, please, honey, you have to stop saying that.”

            “What else am I supposed to say? There’s nothing else to say, Karan, I have nothing else to say. He’s gone, and we’re supposed to pretend he’s not, but I can’t pretend that, I don’t know how to pretend that.”

            There was silence outside Nezumi’s door, and Nezumi wished it could be a relief, but it wasn’t.

 

_four years ago_

Seven days before Shion turned eighteen, Nezumi walked in on him shaving.

            “What are you doing? We’re late for school,” Nezumi said, hiking his backpack up his shoulder and leaning against the doorframe of Shion’s bathroom.

            “I’m shaving,” Shion said, sliding his razor over his cheek.

            “I was waiting outside the bakery for you for five minutes.”

            “I’m almost done.”

            “Have you eaten breakfast yet?”

            “If you keep talking to me, I won’t go any faster, and I’ll cut myself,” Shion complained, rinsing out the blade of his razor.

            Nezumi sighed. “Since when did you sleep in anyway?”

            “I couldn’t fall asleep until around four this morning. I didn’t hear my alarm go off,” Shion said.

            “Let me guess, you were tossing and turning all night worrying. You need to stop dreading your birthday, Your Majesty.”

            Shion didn’t say anything. He ducked his head and ran the faucet and splashed water over his face.

            Nezumi reached out, grabbed his towel for him, offered it when Shion lifted his head out of the sink.         

            “Thanks,” Shion murmured, taking it.

            “You’re not going to get amoritis.”

            “I know.”

            “I’ll sleep at the bakery if you want me to for the rest of the week,” Nezumi said, and Shion peeked at him from above his towel.

            “Will you? The whole week?”

            Nezumi shrugged. “Sure.”

            Shion smiled. There was still a patch of shaving cream on his face. If Nezumi reached out to rub it off, he could leave his hand on Shion’s cheek so that when they kissed, Nezumi could tilt Shion’s face so that their lips fit just right.

            “We should go, we’re late. And you have shaving cream on your face,” Nezumi said, turning around.

            “Let me grab my backpack!” Shion called.

            Nezumi stopped to wait for him at the top of the stairs.

 

_present_

On the third day, Nezumi was discharged from the cure facility. He sat on the train beside Karan, who was taking him home.

            “Where do I live?” he asked, looking out the window, wondering if he remembered what he was looking at, if this was semantic or episodic memory, but he couldn’t even tell.

            He was tired. He wanted to close his eyes and not wake up. He felt like an imposter in this body that belonged to someone else.

            Safu hadn’t returned to his room in the facility after the first day, and he still had not met Shion. He wasn’t sure if he was going to meet Shion, which was probably better.

            “You’re going to live with me for a little bit. You just moved back here. You don’t have your own place,” Karan said.

            “Where was I before?”

            “I don’t know, honey. Until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t seen you in four years. You left when Shion turned eighteen. From what you’ve told me, you’ve been traveling around Japan, finding odd jobs wherever you went. You only came back because you thought you didn’t love Shion anymore, and that you were no longer at risk.”

            Nezumi looked away from the window, glanced at Karan. He hadn’t been able to shake the shouts from outside his door the day before.

            “Safu said he was your son.”

            “He is my son,” Karan confirmed.

            “But I thought…” Nezumi trailed off, uncertain, and Karan smiled gently.

            Nezumi liked her smile. Of everything that was unfamiliar and wrong, Karan’s smile was comforting.

            “You insisted on growing up in an orphanage and refused to let me adopt you. You aren’t officially my son, Nezumi, but that doesn’t mean anything to me or the way I feel about you. But you and Shion were never brothers to each other. You were friends who fell in love.”

            “He loved me too?”

            “Of course. Very much.”

            Nezumi looked back out the window. “We were…in a relationship? Before he turned eighteen and I left?”

            “No. You never confessed your feelings to each other,” Karan said gently, and Nezumi nodded at the landscape flying by outside the train window.

            “What does Shion do?”

            “He’s a teacher at the high school you two used to go to.”

            “And I did odd jobs when I traveled?”

            “I believe you worked at factories. But you could do anything you want, Nezumi. You’re very intelligent.”

            “Did I go to college?”

            “You didn’t, but you can always apply now. Shion always said you’d be a great actor. You were in your high school play once and were very impressive.”

            “An actor?” Nezumi asked, thinking it over. He couldn’t imagine being an actor. He didn’t know how to be himself, had no idea how he could try to be anyone else.

            “You don’t have to feel an obligation to your past, Nezumi. Whatever you want to do now, you can do it.”

            Nezumi tried to think about what he wanted to do, but he couldn’t think of anything. He didn’t know what he wanted, and even by the time the train arrived at their destination, Nezumi had only come up with one wish –

            He wanted to remember.

 

_four years ago_

Six days before Shion turned eighteen, he fell asleep on Nezumi’s shoulder.

            They sat in Shion’s room on the floor against Shion’s bed reading together. Nezumi glanced at Shion, the top of his head, the crown of brown hair, then turned back to his book.

            He looked at the page but couldn’t read a word.

 

_present_

Karan was teaching Nezumi to bake. He liked it because he liked to be around Karan. She made him forget that he couldn’t remember anything.

            He liked the smells of the bakery too. He liked waking early. He liked the act of creating something; it made him feel less useless.

            “Shouldn’t I be paying you rent?” Nezumi asked, on the third day after returning from the cure facility in Tokyo. “Do I have money?”

            “I don’t know if you have money. You might have a bank account. We should look into that. But you don’t have to pay me rent. You’re my son, you don’t pay me rent.”

            “But I’m not actually your son.”

            Karan paused in pouring chocolate chips into the batter Nezumi was mixing. He couldn’t remember any of the recipes, but Karan was very patient, and he liked this too.

            Nezumi glanced at her, about to apologize, only to see that she was smiling brightly.

            “What?”

            Karan laughed. “You just reminded me of yourself just now,” she said, still smiling as she emptied the rest of the chocolate chips from the bag into the batter.

            Nezumi watched them fall, then slowly folded the dough over them, just as Karan had taught him.

 

_four years ago_

Five days before Shion turned eighteen, he and Nezumi raked the leaves in front of the bakery.

            Nezumi paused, wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Shion was collecting the smaller piles they’d made into a single big one, and when he finished, Nezumi came to stand beside him and look down at it.   

            “I think we have to jump in it,” Shion said.

            “How old are you?”

            “Don’t talk about my birthday, I told you I don’t want to think about it.”

            Nezumi rested his arm on Shion’s shoulder. “If you jump in those leaves, you’re cleaning them up.”

            “You have to jump with me.”

            “Well, I’m certainly not going to be doing that.”

            “Come on, Nezumi,” Shion insisted, and Nezumi glanced at him.

            His bangs were slicked back with sweat. His lips were parted and he breathed through them. Nezumi wanted to kiss him and taste the salt on his skin.

            “Your wish is my command, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said, and he tossed his rake to the side, listened to Shion count down.

 

_present_

A week passed after being discharged from the cure facility before Nezumi saw Safu again.

            He was at the library with Karan, who was helping him pick out books.

            “Which ones were my favorites?” he asked.

            “You don’t have to like the same things you liked before.”

            “I want to.”

            “Nezumi, stop putting pressure on yourself to be who you were,” Karan said, and then Safu appeared in the aisle, holding out a book and announcing her presence when she spoke.

            “Read this one.”

            “Safu,” Nezumi said, turning, surprised to see her.

            Safu exhaled hard. “I’m sorry I was a jerk to you at the facility.”

            “It’s okay. I don’t think you were a jerk,” Nezumi said, trying to be nice, and Safu just stared at him, then threw her hands in the air.

            “I can’t do this!” she snapped, tossing the book she’d held on the floor before stalking out of the aisle.

            Nezumi stared in shock at the space of her absence, then looked at Karan.

            “Did I say something?” he asked.

            Karan looked at him sadly. “You didn’t do anything, honey. She needs time.”

            “I said something wrong. What would I have said to her before?”

            “Don’t worry about what you were like before.”

            “If I was more like that now, Safu would like me again.”

            “Don’t worry about Safu liking you. She does,” Karan said, walking around Nezumi to pick up the book Safu had dropped. “Oh, Safu,” she said quietly.

            “What?” Nezumi asked, glancing at the book in Karan’s hands.

            _Hamlet._

            “That’s Shakespeare. I know that,” Nezumi said, pointing at the book, wondering if this was some sort of leftover memory or if Shakespeare was semantic knowledge.

            “It was your favorite,” Karan said softly, placing the book on the shelf in front of them, where it didn’t belong.

            Nezumi took it back out. “I should read it then.”

            “You don’t have to like the same things.” Karan said, as she’d said before.

            “I want to,” Nezumi insisted again, and Karan just shook her head, but didn’t say anything else.

            Nezumi followed her out of the aisle. He looked around the library for Safu, wanting to let her know that he was going to read the book, but she wasn’t in sight.

 

_four years ago_

Four days before Shion turned eighteen, Nezumi had a nightmare that he himself was the one to develop amoritis on his and Shion’s shared birthday.

            In his dream, he looked in the mirror of Shion’s bathroom at his white hair and red eyes, and then Shion walked into the bathroom and said, “Oh. Good thing I don’t love you.”

            Nezumi woke feeling empty and turned to see that Shion was climbing into his bed.

            “You didn’t shout, but I had a feeling you were having a nightmare,” Shion said quietly.

            “I wasn’t,” Nezumi replied.

            “That’s good,” Shion said, and he smiled sleepily, and Nezumi almost asked.

            _Do you really not love me back?_

 

_present_

Three days after she threw down _Hamlet_ in the library, Safu walked into the kitchen while Nezumi was trying to remember what was missing from his cake batter.

            “Hey,” Safu said, and Nezumi looked up.

            “Oh, hi, Safu.”

            “Don’t say it like that.”

            “Say what? Like what?”

            “You sound clueless and polite,” Safu said, frowning.

            “I am clueless, I don’t have any memories. And are you saying I wasn’t polite before? I don’t know if I like to think I used to be rude.”

            Safu rubbed at her temples. “You’re so different,” she said finally, after sighing and dropping her hand.

            “Sorry,” Nezumi said.

            “Stop apologizing!” Safu yelled, then left the kitchen again.

            A pinch of salt, Nezumi remembered. That was what he’d forgotten.

 

_four years ago_

Three days before Shion turned eighteen, it rained.

            Worse than rained. It stormed, and Shion and Nezumi got drenched running to the bakery from school.

            They clambered up the stairs and shed their clothes in Shion’s bedroom.

            “Flip a coin to see who showers first?”

            “I shower first. I’m the guest.”

            “You’re not a guest. This is your home.”

            “I sleep in the guest room.”

            “That’s your room,” Shion said, and Nezumi pushed his bangs off his face, where they’d been plastered.

            Shion’s boxers stuck to the skin of his thighs. Nezumi looked up Shion’s body. He was gangly, without muscle. Lanky and too skinny. Nezumi could almost see his ribs.

            “Fine, flip a coin,” Nezumi said. Shion flipped a coin, and Nezumi got to shower first.

            In the shower, he masturbated thinking about the parts of Shion’s body he hadn’t yet seen, while Shion kept knocking on the door, shouting at him to hurry up, warning him not to use all the hot water.

            Nezumi ignored his shouts easily, the Shion in his head even more persistent than the one outside the bathroom door.

 

_present_

The day after Safu came by the bakery, Nezumi was again visited while he baked in the kitchen, though this time his visitor announced himself with a soft knock on the doorway.

            Nezumi glanced up, pushing his bangs out of his eyes with the back of his hand.

            The man in the doorway had white hair and red eyes. There was a scar on his cheek, shaped in a thick line that seemed to wrap down around his neck and lower still.

            “Hi,” the man said. “Do you know who I am?”

            Nezumi recognized the voice from outside his room at the cure facility in Tokyo. He placed down his rolling pin.

            “You’re Shion,” he said.

            Shion, outside the features characteristic to an amoritis host, looked like his mother in an almost startling way.

            Shion nodded. “But you don’t remember me. You only know me because you were told about me.”

            “I guess,” Nezumi agreed, watching Shion walk into the kitchen.

            He kept walking until he stood only a few inches from Nezumi, and Nezumi fought the urge to step back – this Shion was a stranger, and it felt uncomfortable to stand so close to him.

            “It isn’t hurting you to be near me,” Shion said quietly, almost a whisper. He looked at Nezumi in an odd way, his eyes slipping between both of Nezumi’s as if Nezumi was a book he was reading.

            Nezumi remembered what Karan has said. This man was in love with him – or at least, he was in love with who Nezumi used to be.

            Shion lifted his hand but didn’t touch Nezumi. He froze with his fingers beside Nezumi’s face, then pulled his hand back, held it against his own chest in a loose fist.

            “You don’t know me,” Shion said.

            Nezumi remembered that Safu had gotten mad at him for apologizing, and so he didn’t apologize to Shion even though he wanted to.

            “Now it hurts me to be around you,” Shion said, and he smiled a tilted smile that wasn’t really a smile at all, and Nezumi saw that Shion’s red eyes were wet.

            Nezumi swallowed. Reminded himself not to apologize, but couldn’t think of any other words to offer.

            “I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” Shion whispered.

            “That’s okay.”

            “This is better than if you had died,” Shion said, but he didn’t sound certain; he sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

            Nezumi nodded, if only to reassure Shion.

            “I have to go,” Shion said, and Nezumi nodded again.

            “Okay, I understand. It was nice to meet you,” he said, and Shion opened his lips, and then a tear leaked out from the corner of his eye, and he turned abruptly, left the kitchen.

            Nezumi looked at the empty doorway. He wondered what it had been like to be in love. He wondered if it had been worth everything that came after it.

 

_four years ago_

Two days before Shion turned eighteen, Safu asked Nezumi about prom.

            “What about prom?” she asked, while they sat in the school cafeteria where Shion had yet to join them from his class.

            “Under the Sea could be interesting,” Nezumi said, thinking about the themes listed on the poster they’d seen that morning in the hall.

            “Not the theme. Are you going to ask Shion?”

            “Ask him what?”

            “To go with you.”

            “Why would I do that?”

            “Why wouldn’t you?” Safu countered, and Nezumi chewed on a stick of celery.

            “Why don’t you ask him?” he asked, after a minute.

            Safu smiled slyly. “I’d never betray you like that.”

            Nezumi didn’t have to reply, as Shion had arrived, flopping into his chair and already going on about the homework he’d just been assigned in his trigonometry class.

            Nezumi resumed chewing on his stick of celery. He hated celery, but it always made Shion grin his stupidly wide grin when he got to point out that Nezumi had bits of celery stalk stuck between his teeth.

 

_present_

After a month, Nezumi left the bakery.

            He had not seen Shion since that day in the bakery kitchen a week after being injected with the cure, and he’d only seen Safu sporadically, about once a week when Nezumi could tell she was forcing herself to be around him, and never for very long periods of time.

            Nezumi liked baking in Karan’s bakery, and he liked being around Karan, but he could tell after weeks passed that he was hurting her too, though she was much better at hiding her hurt than Safu.

            It was best that he left. He didn’t know these people and felt no great attachment at being around them anyway, and to be around them only hurt them. It didn’t make sense to stay, really.

            With Karan’s help, Nezumi had found his previous employer, the supervisor at a furniture factory. He learned that he did have a bank account, and he had a decent amount of savings. His previous employer had also offered Nezumi back his old job when Nezumi called. His name was Ryan, and he sounded nice over the phone and informed Nezumi he had been an old friend. This, at least, made Karan less reluctant about letting Nezumi leave.

            “See, I won’t be alone. I have a friend there.”

            “Please take care of yourself,” Karan insisted, while Nezumi packed his few items of clothing.

            “I will.”

            “And you’ll call me every week. And you’ll visit us, right?”

            “I will, Karan,” Nezumi said, but he wasn’t sure if he was lying or not.

            “And you can always keep university as an option, you don’t have to work at this factory if you don’t like it.”

            “Karan, I’ll be fine.”

            “You know I don’t want you to leave.”

            “I know,” Nezumi said, and this time he knew he was lying.

            She didn’t want him there. He could see this clearly now, had been able to tell for about a week that she was in as much pain as Safu.

            Before Nezumi left, Safu came to the train station to say goodbye. She hugged him quickly and kissed his cheek, then stepped back and looked at him in a calculating way before asking, “Are you happy, Nezumi?”

            “Right now?”

            “I need to know if it was worth it. I made you get the cure, and I made Karan and Shion agree with me and help me convince you to do it. Did I do the right thing? Are you happy to have a second chance at a life? Are you happy?”

            Nezumi tilted his head. He didn’t know if he was happy. He couldn’t remember what happiness felt like, and he thought maybe that should have been general knowledge, it should have been semantic memory, it should have been something he would know the way he knew his name and how to do basic math and what amoritis was, but it didn’t feel obvious like those things had been.

            “Sure. I’m happy,” he said, and Safu looked at him for another minute, then nodded.

            “You used to be a better liar,” she said quietly, and then she squeezed Nezumi’s hand and stepped away from him so that Karan could hug him goodbye.

            Shion didn’t come to the station, but Nezumi didn’t expect him to. It would have felt odd saying goodbye to Shion anyway. It would have been like saying goodbye to a stranger, a stranger he had been in love with, maybe, but only in a life that was no longer his.

 

_four years ago_

In twenty-four hours, Shion would turn eighteen.

            “Our eighteenth birthday is in twenty-four hours,” Shion said. He was lying beside Nezumi in the guest room bed, where Nezumi had not woken from a nightmare because he’d not yet gone to sleep, largely due to the fact that Shion had insisted he sleep in Nezumi’s bed that night and was being more talkative than usual.

            “Go to sleep,” Nezumi told him. He opened his eyes and saw that Shion laid on his side, was looking at Nezumi, his brown eyes wide, awake.

            “I’m not tired.”

            “I am.”

            Shion kept looking at him, so Nezumi closed his eyes, not wanting to watch as Shion’s gaze traced his face, not wanting to see the way Shion looked at him and end up thinking about it all night, be kept awake by it all night, the things Shion might have been thinking.

            “Nezumi,” Shion said, a minute after Nezumi had closed his eyes again.

            “I’m asleep.”

            “When we’re eighteen, we’ll be adults. If you don’t want me coming to sleep in your bed with you anymore, I understand.”

            Nezumi didn’t open his eyes. He thought about Shion’s words and thought about what words he could offer, and settled on a question rather than an answer. “Did I tell you I didn’t want you here?”

            “No. But you don’t tell me everything.”

            Nezumi opened his eyes then, watched Shion watch him. He thought of other questions he could ask Shion, questions he wanted to ask Shion every single day, every single minute, every single time Shion looked at him the way he did.

            _Aren’t you supposed to be a genius? Haven’t you realized yet that I’m so fucking in love with you?_

“What does being an adult have to do with anything?’ Nezumi asked, a different question, a question that didn’t matter, a question he didn’t give a damn about.

            Shion shifted, just an inch, his cheek sliding on his pillow, his chin tucking just slightly. “We could get away with sleeping in the same bed as kids. But as adults, it will mean something else.”

            “What will it mean?” Nezumi asked.

            “You know what it means.”

            “No, I don’t. Tell me.”

            Shion breathed out of his lips. Nezumi looked down at them, then back at Shion’s eyes, but he still thought about Shion’s lips, how easy it would be to lean forward, to kiss him, so gently Shion wouldn’t even notice, wouldn’t have a clue.

            “Friends don’t sleep in the same bed,” Shion said, his words careful and hushed.

            “So if I don’t kick you out of my bed, you won’t be my friend anymore?”

            “Nezumi.”

            “Your Majesty.”

            “I know you know what I’m saying.”

            “I never know what you’re saying.”

            “Just be honest with me. Just tell me the truth,” Shion said, as if it was only Nezumi who had a truth, as if it was up to Nezumi completely.

            Nezumi looked at Shion a moment more, then rolled onto his back. He stared up at his ceiling and thought about the truths he could offer Shion. 

            _I want to sleep beside you every night of my life._

_I want to be your best friend and I want to be everything else too._

_I want to kiss you right now and after that and again._

_I want to do more than kiss you._

_I want you, I want you – Goddammit, Shion, can’t you see that I want you?_

And then there was Nezumi’s biggest truth, the one that would have kept him awake all night even if Shion wasn’t in his bed – _I’m more scared than you are that you will develop amoritis in twenty-four hours._

            “Nezumi.”

            “Hm.”

            “It’s okay. Forget I said anything. Nothing has to be different when we’re adults. Eighteen is an arbitrary age to determine an adult anyway. The brain doesn’t fully develop until the age of twenty-three, which is when I think people should be considered adults.”

            “So right before we turn twenty-three, are you going to ask me if I think we should stop sleeping in the same bed again?”

            “Probably,” Shion said, and Nezumi turned his head again, looked at Shion again, never wanted to look away.

            “Promise?” Nezumi asked, and Shion smiled.

            “Promise.”

            Nezumi took this as a promise that Shion would sleep in his bed until they were twenty-three years old. A promise of at least five more years, and after that, the chance for more.

            And more importantly, he took it as a promise that in twenty-four hours, Shion wouldn’t develop amoritis, and Nezumi wouldn’t die, and maybe then, finally, Nezumi would be allowed to love him without any fear at all.

 

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the fic is technically finished there is a very short epilogue (a "ten years later" scene) that I'll be posting either tomorrow or the next day.   
> I have a sneaking suspicion that the epilogue is not going to be well-liked, so I wanted to post it as a separate chapter from this one - so if this is where you'd prefer the fic to end, then this is where it can end for you, and we can all go home happy (or, you know, not as miserable as you could have been).  
> But if you welcome the intensified heartbreak that's possibly an even worse alternative to this ending (I like to think it's a hopeful heartbreak though...), then stay tuned for the epilogue! 
> 
> And as always, thanks so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the fic! :)


	11. EPILOGUE

_ten years later_

Nezumi recognized Shion immediately.

            Most people with amoritis – like Ryan – hid it. Dyed their hair and wore colored contacts and covered their scars in clothes or make-up. Especially now that it didn’t matter, there was no need for these physical signs of warning.

            Shion didn’t cover his disease, and when Nezumi saw him sitting at a table on the other side of the coffee shop, he was immediately reminded of the first time he’d seen Shion, in the doorway of Karan’s kitchen ten years before.

            “You’re staring.”

            Nezumi glanced at Ryan, who had his eyebrows – dyed a bleach blonde now, a change from the old midnight black that he was testing out – raised.

            “It’s rude to stare at amoritis hosts,” Ryan said.

            “You don’t mind when I stare at you.”

            Ryan smiled. “That’s different.”

            “I know him,” Nezumi explained, looking back at Shion, and Ryan laughed.

            “You don’t know anyone,” he reminded, and then he stopped laughing. “Unless – Is that Shion?”

            “Yeah,” Nezumi said, then stood up. “Do you mind if I go say hi?”

            “Don’t fall in love with him again,” Ryan warned, and Nezumi smiled at him in reassurance.

            Of course, it wouldn’t be nearly as detrimental as it had been if Nezumi fell in love with Shion again. Five years before, slews of research had come out by top amoritis experts – Nezumi’s former friend Safu included at the top of the list of names on the experiments and following articles that were released – proving that amoritis was all psychological, the physical effects a manifestation of a norm so subconsciously engrained that it became deadly. The research equated the disease to the placebo effect – though, obviously, amoritis had the opposite effect, a killer rather than a cure.

            And as further proof, after the research came out, just like that, people in love with amoritis hosts were surviving.

            Nezumi, too, had survived falling in love with an amoritis host after the research was released, and he glanced back at Ryan, who was watching him still as he crossed the coffee shop.

            “Nezumi?”

            Nezumi turned away from Ryan, and there was Shion, staring up at him with wide red eyes.

            “Shion. Hi.”

            Even though amoritis hosts were now known and accepted as harmless to fall in love with, a stigma remained with many of those who’d been raised in fear of red eyes and white hair, and most hosts preferred to hide their disease. Nezumi wondered why Shion didn’t.

            “Oh my god. It’s you,” Shion said, and he stood up and hugged Nezumi, his arms surprisingly tight. Nezumi froze, then slowly hugged Shion back until Shion stepped away from him, looking flustered. “Sorry, I forgot you don’t know me. Sorry.”

            “That’s okay.”

            “You cut your hair,” Shion said, and Nezumi reached up, touched his hair that he’d forgotten he used to keep long.

            “Oh. I guess. A long time ago, right after I left Karan, actually.”

            Shion nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. “Right. Wow. You look – You’re here, I can’t believe you’re here.”

            “I live a few blocks from here.”

            “Really? Oh, I didn’t know, I’m only in this town to look at this museum I was thinking my students could visit on a school trip. I didn’t know you lived here.”

            “That’s okay,” Nezumi said, smiling because Shion seemed nervous, unsettled.

            “I’m just – I’m overwhelmed. Sorry. I didn’t expect to see you. It’s been so long, but you look – You look exactly the same. Except different, too. Your hair’s cut, and you look older – Did you get taller? But at the same time, you look just like you used to, you look so incredible. I mean, I don’t mean – Sorry,” Shion said, shaking his head, running his hand quickly through his own hair. His cheeks were pink and his words a rapid stream.

            “You don’t have to apologize,” Nezumi said gently.

            Shion blinked at him, then shook his head. “Do you want to sit down? Maybe we could – We could catch up – It’s been so long – I thought about reaching out to you so many times, especially after Safu’s research came out, but it’d already been five years, and of course you don’t remember me, I didn’t know – ”

            “Actually, I’m here with someone. I saw you and wanted to say hello, but I should get back,” Nezumi said. It amazed him how quickly Shion could speak, his words so fast Nezumi had to repeat them in his head a second time to process them all.

            “You’re here with someone,” Shion repeated, and now he spoke very slowly.

            Nezumi pointed across the coffee shop to where Ryan was watching them. “That’s Ryan. My fiancé.”

            “Your fiancé?” Shion asked loudly, almost a shout, then abruptly cupped his hand over his mouth, released his lips only slowly and with what appeared to be some reluctance. “I’m sorry. Sorry. I wasn’t expecting – I mean – Congratulations. That’s – That’s great. Really great.”

            Nezumi smiled lightly. “Thank you, Shion.”

            Shion tugged at the sleeve of his sweater. “Does – Does my mom know? That you – That you have – That you’re getting married? I think she’d want to go to the wedding, if you’re having one. Even if you haven’t been in contact with her lately, I’m sure she still thinks of you as, well, you know…”

            “I’ll let her know,” Nezumi promised. He watched Shion weave his fingers through his hair, nod vaguely. “How have you been?”

            Shion blinked quickly, smiled a forced smile. “I’m doing just fine, Nezumi, thank you for asking. I’ll let you go back to your, um, I’ll let you go now. It was really great to see you. Really.”

            Nezumi nodded. “It was nice to see you too, Shion,” he said, and he turned away from Shion, walked across the coffee shop and sat across from Ryan again, who was still looking at Shion.

            “It’s rude to stare at amoritis hosts,” Nezumi reminded.

            “He looks heartbroken,” Ryan said.

            “No, he doesn’t.”

            Ryan looked back at Nezumi. “He does.”

            “You’re just saying that. We don’t even know each other.”

            “You don’t know him. He still knows you.”

            “He hasn’t seen me in ten years.”

            “I’m telling you, the guy’s heartbroken. I feel bad for him. What did you say?”

            Nezumi shook his head, but he was careful not to look back at Shion. If Ryan was telling the truth, Nezumi didn’t want to know it.

            Ten minutes later, Nezumi and Ryan left the coffee shop, and Nezumi was able to put Shion out of his mind for the rest of the day.

            It wasn’t until that night, after he’d fallen asleep, that Nezumi dreamt of Shion. It was not the first time he dreamt of something he suspected could be a memory. It’d been happening increasingly in the previous few years – flashes of storms and smiles and swingsets and shots and celery sticks and cemeteries and slow-dancing in a bedroom – but Nezumi could never be sure if his dreams actually were memories, and he was usually quick to forget them anyway within a few minutes after waking.

            This dream, however, he couldn’t forget, and it immediately became recurring. A month after Nezumi saw Shion at the coffee shop, he woke from the same dream again, the thirty-first night in a row. He sat up, pulling his knees to his chest and dipping his forehead into them, breathing carefully and waiting for his heartbeat to steady.

            “Another nightmare?” Ryan asked sleepily, and Nezumi lifted his head from his knees to glance down at Ryan lying beside him, looking up sleepily from his pillow.

            “It’s nothing,” Nezumi murmured. “Go back to sleep.”

            “Want to talk about it?”          

            “It’s okay. Go to sleep, I’m just going to get a glass of water.”

            “Mm, okay,” Ryan said, closing his eyes again, and Nezumi slipped out of their bed.

            He went to the kitchen and filled a glass of water at the sink, but he forgot to drink it. He held it in his hand and closed his eyes and tried to forget the dream he couldn’t shake, hadn’t been able to shake for a month. The dream where he was a teenager and Shion had brown eyes and brown hair, and they were sitting on Shion’s bedroom floor above the bakery, and Shion was saying –

            _I want you to kiss me._

            And Nezumi, unbearably, wanted to kiss Shion too – even long after he woke.

**


End file.
